THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW
For the first time in more than 70 years, Wales will have to manage against France without the Grand Old Man of the Grand Slam. Lewis Jones, the lay preacher’s son from Gorseinon whose warm-up routine used to finish with several puffs on a Capstan Full Strength cigarette, loved the Wales-France fixture more than any other, an annual reminder of glory days long shrouded in the smoky mists of time.
He played against France twice, at the Arms Park in 1950 when Wales won their first post-war Slam and at St Helen’s in Swansea in 1952 when they won their second, a double emulated only once: by Gareth, Benny, JPR, JJ, Gerald and the rest of the galactic gang some quarter of a century later.
When it came to ticking every major box in the Union book, none of the untouchables from the Seventies could hold a candle to the Jones Boy. He ticked them all off in a flash: capped at 18, a Test Lion at 19, a double Grand Slammer at 20.
And then, in the finest showbiz tradition, he left the Welsh public wailing for more. Those who witnessed his match-winning pair of second half penalties against France at Swansea found it hard to believe that a pot of Yorkshire gold meant they would never see him play for Wales again.
Jones, still in a hurry, had gone north at 21, to Leeds and Headingley where, true to form, he promptly became a superstar of Rugby League at 22. Nobody bewailed his departure more than his team-mate Cliff Morgan in pointing out that Wales had lost ‘their best wing three-quarter, their best full back and their best centre’.
Leeds wanted Jones so badly that they were reputed to have gone into the red to find the £6,000 to secure his services. His exit did nothing for Wales apart from perhaps reducing the smoke in the home dressing room.
“I used to enjoy a cigarette which you can’t imagine these days,” Jones said. “It was part of my pre-match routine and, occasionally, even part of my half-time routine.
“As Cliff invariably reminded me: ‘I remember you, Jonesy, walking out to play an international and going down the steps to the pitch and you putting your fag out on the wall’.”
And now, sadly, the oldest surviving Slammer, long acclaimed by contemporaries on both sides of the Rubicon as the supreme back in either code, has gone, too, within four weeks of what would have been his 93rd birthday.
As if his achievements in both codes are not enough, he leaves a treasure-trove of stories, including two, one from each of his Grand Slam seasons, which can never be equalled, let alone surpassed.
Somehow it seems utterly appropriate given the supersonic nature of his early years that Jones should have been the first Lion to join a tour by air, New Zealand in 1950 as a replacement for the injured Ireland full-back, George Norton.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as nervous as I was when I got on the Boeing Stratocruiser at London Airport, as it was called at the time,” he told me for the book, Lions of Wales. “I’d never been in a plane before and here I was going to places I’d never heard of.
“We touched down at Shannon in Ireland, then Gander in Newfoundland and onto New York. We changed planes there and I got on a Super Constellation for the next part of the trip.
“We stopped at Chicago and San Francisco, stayed overnight and changed planes again. Then it was down through the Pacific, three or four more stops, including Honolulu and I arrived in Auckland after three-and-a-half days. The last time I made the trip it took me less than 24 hours.”
What makes Jones doubly unique is that his first contact with Leeds Rugby League club took place not in some remote hotel but amid the grandeur of the Long Room at Lord’s. Acricketing all-rounder of no mean ability, the Welsh Lion was there playing for the Royal Navy in their annual match against the Army.
He met Kenneth Dalby, the Leeds team manager, at the end of the first day’s play, a convivial introduction according to Jones which made him think twice about what he’d been told about League as ‘a game for thugs run by thugs’.
An earlier attempt by another northern club to separate Jones from the Navy drew an aggressive response from the Senior Service. He feared the worst when summoned before the Commanding Officer at Devonport, Captain RW Marshall. “My heart sank when he said: ‘Look here, Jones. I’ve had a couple of fellows here looking for you. They say they’re from a Rugby League club. So I had them escorted out and turfed overboard. For your own good, my boy’.”
By the time Leeds made their approach, Jones was driving a dumper truck at Carmarthen Bay power station, his national service done. Mr Dalby could make his move without any risk of being made to walk the plank.
In the days immediately after a signing which stopped the rugby world in its tracks, Jones found himself persona non grata in Union. The cold shoulder treatment extended to his former team-mates who had been invited to celebrate his marriage to Maureen Williams.
Only one turned up at the wedding, Cliff Morgan. “I admired Cliff in many ways but I really admired him for that,” Jones said. “He put his head on the block in doing so because even by talking to a Rugby League player in those days you could get yourself into trouble.
“I don’t know why but there seemed to be a bit of a social stigma about going to League as far as the people in Union were concerned. It was made fairly clear that you wouldn’t be made welcome at any of the clubhouses back in Wales. I never went back to any of the grounds. It was that bad.
“I always avoided any risk of causing anyone any embarrassment. I never went to a single match in Wales because I’d heard so many stories about League players being kicked out. Once I’d gone, I don’t think I spoke to one of the players I played with in the Welsh team for years and years with the notable exception of Cliffy.”
Lewis Jones was loved wherever he went but nowhere more so than in Leeds, his home for some 70 years. If rugby really is the game they play in heaven, he and ‘Cliffy’ will be having a whale of a time…
