It is likely that few readers will know the name of Billy Makin. Yet this is a man who on resuming the game after a two-year gap early in his career performed so well in local cricket that he was described as ‘Champion’; and who top-scored for New South Wales on his debut in 1910, a meteoric rise after playing Second Grade cricket only eight months earlier. But this sudden elevation was followed by an equally sudden fall: he played no first-class cricket after two matches in his debut season, and four years later dropped out of First Grade cricket, although for reasons impossible now to determine, he did not enlist when the First World War started. More than a decade later, he reappeared at Grade cricket, playing for the St George Third Grade side with much success, although he remained at Third Grade level.
Equally puzzling is the fact that despite having a first-class mind, he was apparently content to work at a relatively lowly level in the office of the Registrar General in Sydney. He qualified for the Bar in 1938, but never served as a barrister, making him, in the authors’ words, ‘Sydney’s most overqualified clerk’.
There are indeed ‘puzzles aplenty’ in the life of Makin, and at this distance the authors have a difficult task in finding answers. Makin’s private life was unhappy, and hence there appears to be little in the way of correspondence or family records to help fill the gaps. But while there are sometimes no definitive explanations for the mysteries of Makin’s life, they serve to underline that despite his relative obscurity, he is a fascinating subject for a biography. It should be noted that the hardback edition of this book, a limited edition of only fifteen copies, sold out before publication, hence only softback copies remain.
JR