Robin Isherwood has been interested in Bishops' cricket for a long time.  He connected with Brian de Kock (1953,O) when Brian was the ODU Secretary, and Robin on a visit to SA (see the photograph above - Credit: Robin Isherwood). 

Robin still follows Bishops' cricketing history and regularly updates the register that he has compiled, on Bishops' First Class Cricketers from 1888 to the current period.  Paul Murray the CT Branch Secretary wrote and asked Robin if he could share the story. 

"I have been involved with the SA Cricket Annual since 1976. When my great friend Colin (Bryden) took over as editor for the 1995 Annual (and continued as editor until the last Annual was published in 2022) I proof read all the pages. I supplied details for our obituary section as well as various record sections. I still update the list of SA School Caps players and SA Under-19 International players which go in the Khaya Majola Under-19 Week brochure held every December."

"We have done hundreds of obituaries between us over the 27 years, Colin as editor. We are in regular contact and tell each other of the death of any SA cricketer we hear of. Colin still works for AFP (part-time) and sends a list of obituaries to Wisden each year."

"The last obituary we have done is on ‘Kim’ Elgie (Natal) who died on 16 September (the only South African Test cricketer to play rugby for Scotland - eight times - at rugby)."

"The Players Register, from which I produce the Bishops Register, is done from a spreadsheet of over 6400 lines and lists every cricketer who has played in SA domestic cricket (f-c, List A and T20 matches) from 1888/89 to date."

"With the Test Umpire, Hayward Kidson, we started working on a Players Register, from scratch, in the late 1980s. I still have copies of Hayward’s handwritten A-Z sheets for each province (no internet and e-mails then!). He worked for SA Railways all his life and told me he had been to every railway station in SA. He wrote hundreds of letters and made hundreds of phone calls in trying to find out biographical details of all our SA cricketers. I have over 850 handwritten (A4) sheets of information that Hayward sent me in the post."

"When Hayward sadly died in 1995 I carried on updating the Register. Thanks to the internet (and the Annual Who’s Who section) I have added/amended a massive amount of information that is available on birth, death and marriage certificates".

"Although I have lived in the same village up in the hills, north of Bolton, all my life I have watched SA play Test matches in SA, Australia and New Zealand (and England naturally!)."

"I have also been to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia (Sir Ernest Shackleton was a schoolboy hero of mine and have now stood next to his grave in Grytviken) and the Antarctica Peninsula."

Thank you Robin for allowing this information to be shared, what a magnum opus!

ODs wishing to add anything related can contact Paul Murray who will share it with Robin pmurray@bishops.org.za