Almanac Obituary: Vale Barry Jarman
Image: Courtesy of the ABC
There will be many other posts on this matter over the coming days but I’ll bounce the ball anyway.
I seem to remember in my quirky 1960s Victorian Catholic way that I always imagined Barry Jarman as the Justin Simmons’ equivalent to Wally Grout’s Daniel Mannix.
Simmons became Australia’s first native born archbishop in 1963 having waited for the job he was “succession planned” for on his episcopal appointment during the war in 1942. Sadly, Simmons died in 1967 just four years later but only after his cantankerous old Irishman predecessor with stout peasant genes lasted much longer than the Vatican ever imagined he would.
In Jarman’s case, both he and Grout were brilliant keepers. With his much longer view of Oz cricket history than mine, my late dad told me so even though he always banged on about how Bert Oldfield was better than both because of his work standing at the stumps (see earlier article).
Think here though about other clashes like Stuart MacGill/Shane Warne. Or even Humphrey Bogart’s “of all the gin joints in all the towns in all world why does she walk into mine?”
Vale Bazza.
RDL
Read Roger Lowrey’s piece about Bert Oldfield HERE
For further articles about Barry Jarman, especially Barry Nicholls’ biography of him, CLICK HERE.
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About Roger Lowrey
Roger Lowrey is a Geelong based writer who lists his special interests as reading, writing, horse racing, Roman history and AEC electoral boundaries. Some of his friends think he is a little eccentric.
Thanks for this Roger. A sad loss, some very good tributes to Jarman have been posted, Darren Lehmann in particular put up a nice tribute.
Tough gig being the second best keeper in Australia, 19 Tests (one as captain) is still a career of substance.Lots of very good keepers in my time watching have only had a very limited go (Tim Zoehrer, Graham Manou & I think Ryan Campbell could have have been a superstar batsman/keeper in ODI cricket but for Gilchrist being ahead of him) or no chance at all (Sean Clingeleffer, Wade Seccombe, Tim Nielsen, Chris Hartley, Tim Ludeman), but the one I feel most for is Darren Berry, easily the best wicketkeeper I’ve ever seen, some of the things I saw him do for Victoria keeping up to the stumps were extraordinary.
Vale BN Jarman.
Yes Luke, I agree in trumps with your assessment of Darren Berry. His lengthy Sheffield Shield career without playing a Test makes him the wicket keeping equivalent of Jamie Siddons.
Back to Barry Jarman for a moment, I see in today’s media that he was a member of a very exclusive club, namely, the six cricketers who captained Australia in one Test. For the record, the other five were Hugh Massie, Bill Brown, Ray Lindwall,, Neil Harvey and Shane Watson.
RDL
Ta Roger, Barry Jarman is slightly before my time. I remember Mike Hendricks behind the stumps for SA; the first time i saw a test match on TV, ‘Bacchus’ was keeping.
Jarman was an umpire in the South Australian footy league ? I’m also curious re his horse racing links.
Glen!
A nice tribute, Roger. Thanks.