The Club has been contacted by a lady offering us a lovely framed picture of a cricket match at Reigate Heath in 1986. It belonged to her late husband who played there before they had married and hence the picture has no real significance for her.

The lady's name is Alexandra Obolensky and those of us of a certain age who follow rugby will know that Prince Alexander Obolensky is one of England's most famous players. He scored two tries for England at Twickenham in 1936 to beat the All Blacks 13-0.

Your President naturally spotted the link and yes the Prince was the lady's uncle. In digging deeper it turns out that this kind lady is in fact Princess Alexandra Obolensky and is descended from Russian nobility and her grandfather, a Prince, served in the Tsar's Imperial Horse Guards.

Her uncle, the rugby player, was educated at Trent College and Brasenose College, Oxford but was sadly killed whilst serving in the Air Force in 1940. A statue of him was unveiled in Ipswich in 2009 by his niece, Princess Alexandra, the lady who is kindly donating the picture. Helping fund the statue was of course Roman Obramovich of Chelsea fame.

To close the story it turns out I knew his centre partner in the All Blacks match quite well. His name was Peter Cranmer who also captained Warwickshire at cricket. I know the gags will flow but I hasten to add that he was 30 years older than me but was a stalwart of Midland sport.

You may ask what has all this got to do with RPCC but it's kept me amused on Wikepedia and I don't get to mix with Royalty that often. I'm sure we can find room for a picture of cricket on Reigate Heath, after all our 3rd XI used it as their home ground in the early years.