Lester the revolutionary

The book was released last November and Lester was planning to spend this summer helping to promote it. Then in early February came the terrible news that he had died of a heart attack at the family home in Sussex, aged 67.

It was a shock to everyone who knew him. As he talks about in his book, he’d had health issues throughout his life but former teammates and pals who had seen him in the weeks before he died thought he looked well and was in good spirits. Not surprisingly it was standing room only at the Holy Trinity Church in Colemans Hatch on Ashdown Forest when he was laid to rest on 23 February. Mourners were invited to dress ‘with a hint of pink.’ That was Lester, colourful right until the end.

As the introduction to his biography makes clear, he packed quite a lot into his life. He was a schoolboy rackets champion, but his real sporting ambition was to play cricket for the county where he grew up. He achieved that and in a career spanning 18 years, the last two of which were spent at Surrey, he took 672 first-class wickets. That era at Hove in the late 70s and early 80s might be best remembered for Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux, but Lester was a magnificent support act.