Tales from the Boundary
B. E. A. Edmeades
Brian Ernest Arthur Edmeades. Sounds proper British, does it not? And indeed it is, according to one website which states that Edmeades is "a rare surname of truly ancient pre-7th century Olde English origins." So, Brian is probably Anglo-Saxon with, maybe, a dash of Viking, which would account for his golden (not blond) hair (well, it was golden when I saw him 50 or so years ago).
Anyway, his Mum was in Matlock, Derbyshire when Brian was born in 1941 and he was in Wanstead in 1959 when he made his Essex Seconds' debut in 1959, taking two wickets and scoring 14 runs in a seemingly rain affected match with Middlesex.
Brian played mainly second eleven matches in 1959/60/61 but made a first class debut for Essex in 1961 on the Hoffman's ground at Chelmsford against South Africa Fezelas, which side included Eddie Barlow, Denis Lindsay, Roy McLean, Colin Bland, Peter van der Merwe and Peter Pollock (uncle of Sean, brother of Graeme). County Championship matches against Surrey at the Oval and Sussex at Hove followed.
In 1962 Brian played 23 first class matches, scoring 392 runs with one fifty (50 not out) and taking 23 wickets. For the next fourteen seasons he was pretty well a regular, firstly as a bowler but ending up opening the batting and proving an effective all-rounder in the one day games.
His first class career was 335 matches, 12,593 runs at 25.9, with 14 centuries PLUS 374 wickets at 25.90; PLUS 156 one-dayers, with 2,735 runs at 23.57, with a century, PLUS 169 wickets at 22.72. Quite a busy few years!