Once Were Lions: The Players’ Stories: Inside the World’s Most Famous Rugby Team

There were four second row forwards in the squad and one of them was the tour captain, so that meant there were three of us going for one place. I was named as first reserve but never got to play, and it was the closest I ever came to making the Test team.

In any case, I got to ‘play’ in one sense, because I had taken my bagpipes with me on the tour and I played the team onto the pitch for that first Test.

The match has gone down in history as one of the greatest internationals ever played. The Lions won 23–22 in front of a world-record crowd of 95,000, plus at least another 10,000 who got in by dubious means. Dickie Jeeps recalled how one stand was given over to black South Africans, and they roared their support for the men in red rather than green.

Jeeps explained: ‘Many of them had got in over some scaffolding and it was absolutely packed. I was told many years later that Nelson Mandela had been in among them. It was good to have their support.’

The manner of the victory was very pleasing, the Lions playing running rugby and coming from behind, while also playing the second half of the match with 14 men after Higgins retired injured. A brilliant try under the posts by Cliff Morgan saw the Lions forge ahead and further second-half tries by Jim Greenwood and O’Reilly put them 23–11 up, only for South Africa to draw within a point with a late try.

The Springboks goal kicker Jack van der Schyff stepped up to take the conversion which would decide the outcome: ‘I remember we were all standing under the posts,’ said Dickie Jeeps, ‘just watching and waiting, while Billy Williams stood there with his hands together saying, “the Lord will keep this out, the Lord will keep this out”’.

Divine judgement or not, the conversion was missed, and the Lions had won a Test in South Africa for only the third time in the 20th century.

Danie Craven was the dictatorial coach of the Springboks and his reaction was one of fury at his side’s complacency. He dropped five of the team including goal kicker Jack van der Schyff who had missed the late conversion—he never played for South Africa again. The Boks went all out for revenge and got it in some style, outclassing the Lions 25–9 in the second Test.

The third Test proved crucial to the success of the tour. Angus Cameron’s injured knee caused him to be left out and replaced by Doug Baker, while Clem Thomas came in for his Lions Test debut. Captain Robin Thompson also missed the match through injury. His place was taken by Irish giant Tom Reid, who formed a partnership with Rhys Williams that proved crucial on the day.

In his History, Thomas related a bizarre event in training before the vital Test: ‘Danie Craven, obsessed by the idea that the British press were spying on him, took his players off the field and, when they had gone, took them back again for a session under bright moonlight.’ The press dubbed it ‘the moonlight sonata’.

It did the Springboks no good. Inspired by new captain Morgan, in the heat of Pretoria, the Lions took on the South Africans up front and won the toughest exchanges of the tour. Rhys Williams and Reid dominated the line-out, and even though badly injured, Courtenay Meredith stayed on the field and contributed to the forwards’ dominance. Meredith’s tongue had been almost severed, but despite being in agony, he insisted on being stitched up to play on, and was later re-stitched in order to play in the final Test as well.

Bryn Meredith said: ‘The Springboks are always big and physical, but we decided to take them on up front that day. It was one of the hardest matches I’ve ever played, but we had a good pack and good backs and we were determined to win.’

Jeeps commented: ‘You had to put up with the hard tackles and the bad ones, but that was part of the game, and anyway, we were as hard as they were.’

The Lions had also decided to change tactics behind the scrum, kicking rather than running the ball, and as a result there were no fewer than 63 line-outs in the match. The switch worked, and though the victory was narrow at 9–6, it was nevertheless deserved, not least because Butterfield had scored the only try of the game. With Morgan in control of the match, even Danie Craven had to admit that his beloved Springboks had been second best on the day. According to Meredith there was ‘one hell of a party’ that night.

No matter what happened, the Lions could not lose the four-match series, but by then they were exhausted and injury-ridden. Cliff Morgan had picked up an ankle knock but such was his importance that he would have been selected with any injury short of an amputation. The position of the captain was less clear. Robin Thompson’s fitness after injury was under considerable debate, but the man himself maintained he was fit enough to play, and later described it as ‘just another Lions myth’ that he had forced his way back into the team.

Shortly before his death in 2003, Thompson nailed the ‘myth’, saying:

Before the final Test the selection team of manager Jack Siggins, vice-captain Angus Cameron, Cliff Morgan and myself sat down. I said that I was fit and would like to be included. There were no qualms, no raised eyebrows; the trio were in full agreement.

But after the game I got some very bad press. They said I had forced my way onto the team even though I was still carrying an injury. Where all that came from I just do not know.

It was no surprise when a fired-up South Africa hit the tired Lions with everything plus the kitchen sink in that final Test in Port Elizabeth. Tony O’Reilly broke his shoulder scoring the second of the Lions’ two tries—it was his 16th of the tour, a new Lions record—but these achievements were scant consolation as the Springboks ran in five tries of their own for a 22–9 victory that squared the series.

Only now has Ernest Michie revealed the ‘hex’ which may have afflicted the Lions that day:

Cliff Morgan was very superstitious, and with us having won the first Test after I’d piped them on, he didn’t want us to take the field without me playing the pipes. But I was rooming with Johnny Williams who was a bit of a prankster, and who couldn’t resist trying to have a go at playing my pipes, which were all set up and ready to go. Unfortunately he knocked the reed out of the chanter so I couldn’t play them and couldn’t lead out the team in the last Test. I remember Cliff Morgan moaning ‘we’ll lose, we’ll lose’.

The series may have ended in a draw, but it was a victory for the quality of the Lions in one respect. One South African commentator wrote that his country owed ‘a manifold debt to the British Isles rugby touring team. They have rescued our rugby from becoming a matter merely of boot and brawn.’

As they had done on arrival, the Lions serenaded the large crowd that turned out to witness their departure. They left for home as one of the most popular touring parties ever to visit South Africa, their stylish play having entertained more than 750,000 spectators at their 25 games. To their amazement, on arriving in London after stopping off to play and beat an East African XV in Nairobi, the Lions were given a heroes’ welcome. The players did not know that, back home, the press coverage had been devoured by the rugby community in Britain and Ireland, and that newsreels of their matches had been popular in the cinemas.

The 1955 Lions enjoyed varying degrees of success in their lives after the tour. Dickie Jeeps went on to make two more tours with the Lions and later became chairman of the Sports Council—as we will see in chapter ten.

Ernest Michie’s international career was cut short by the diktat of the Scottish Rugby Union. He returned from the tour to National Service and then got a job with the Forestry Commission in Nottingham. While there, Michie turned out for Leicester, but the SRU had taken drastic action to counteract Scotland’s poor form in the early 1950s and had insisted that only ‘home-based’ players or those playing for London Scottish would be considered for selection. Michie was summarily dropped—even selection for the Lions was no guarantee of success against the short-sighted-ness of the blazerati of those days. Michie went on to enjoy a long career in the Forestry Commission and he and his wife Sybil, a nurse he met before the 1955 tour and who waited patiently for him to return, now live in Inverness.

Rhys Williams beat Michie to that second row place in the 1955 Test side. He would tour again in 1959, and go on to become one of the most respected figures in the administration of Welsh rugby, as well as a top official in the principality’s educational sector. But his connection to South Africa, minted in 1955, cost him dear. He would have become president of the WRU had he not visited South Africa as part of its board’s centenary celebration in 1989. Instead, after controversy broke out about the visit, Williams resigned his national position. He died in 1993.

Tom Elliot and Hugh McLeod, of those great Borders rivals Gala and Hawick respectively, became lifelong friends. McLeod said ‘He was a great guy, even if he was a pailmerk’ (an affectionate derogatory name for a resident of Galashiels). They never made the Lions Test team together but starred for Scotland for several years, becoming famous for their pre-match wrestling ‘warm up’ routine. Elliot became one of Scotland’s most respected farmers, and was awarded an MBE for his services to the industry. He died in 1998, while Hugh McLeod still lives in Hawick and is a stalwart of the town’s club, where he was once president and for which he famously absented himself from his honeymoon to play for.

The Lions of 1955 have had diverse careers. Jim Greenwood captained Scotland to a revival in the late 1950s before becoming one of the most respected coaches in the northern hemisphere and passing on his expertise to several future Lions while working as a lecturer at Loughborough College. Frank Sykes, the England winger, emigrated to the USA where he had a long and distinguished career as a teacher, latterly at Cate School in California where he even managed to encourage pupils into the delights of rugby. He now lives in Washington State.

One Lion who caused great controversy was none other than the captain. Robin Thompson provoked anger and fierce debate when he signed in early 1956 for Warrington, where his brother was a doctor. As had happened with Lewis Jones in 1950, once again a Lion was ostracized from rugby union. Sadly for Thompson, his playing career was cut short by a bone disease at the age of just 25, and he also endured a heart attack in his early forties, followed by several more after that. Thompson nevertheless became a respected rugby pundit and was inducted into the Rugby Writers’ Hall of Fame shortly before he died in 2003.

Other 1955 Lions have had to endure dire ill-health in later life. Cliff Morgan enjoyed a stellar career in broadcasting and became one of the best-known voices on television and radio, most memorably being the commentator for the legendary Barbarians versus All Blacks match in Cardiff in 1973. Behind the scenes, Morgan became head of sport at the BBC, while his vocal talents were always in demand on radio. Most cruelly, when he was afflicted with cancer some years ago, his treatment required the removal of his larynx, and that wonderful voice has been silenced. Yet he still maintains his interest in sport and his former colleagues from his home on the Isle of Wight.

‘What has happened to Cliff has been terrible, simply awful, especially when you consider that speaking was his way of life,’ said Dickie Jeeps. ‘But he is still in touch with letters and cards, and they are always so well written.’

It is always tragic when a physically fit person succumbs to dementia, and that is what happened when Alzheimer’s Disease afflicted one of the most popular of the 1955 Lions. Former England scrum-half John Williams was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 68, and his family have suffered a nightmare ever since.

His wife Mary went public with the details in a very moving ‘first person’ article in the Daily Mail in an attempt to show how victims of Alzheimer’s are often misunderstood and mistreated. Mrs Williams, who herself has survived a double mastectomy for breast cancer, told how the man the 1955 Lions knew as fun-loving Johnny the prankster had become a violent, forgetful, moody individual who had regressed to childhood. He would hit her, and seconds later act as if nothing had happened. When her son from her first marriage, Jonathan, was killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 41, Williams would try to understand but seemed incapable of sympathizing—a classic symptom of the disease. Eventually Mary could no longer care for him at home and he had to be hospitalized. She wrote:

It’s almost impossible to equate the ruggedly handsome, energetic sporting hero I fell in love with and the broken man who cannot even remember his own name. This kind, generous and good man is now held for his own safety in the secure unit of a hospital specializing in patients with mental illnesses.

My husband, who is now 76, is incontinent and unable to feed or wash himself. The dementia has made him so aggressive towards me and others that for months he was detained under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act—an extreme law giving doctors the authority to hold and treat a patient.

The Williams family also faced a long and heartbreaking fight to get his care paid for, as was his right under the National Health Service rules. The Lions Trust stepped in with a £10,000 donation to help pay for his care, but Mrs Williams faced losing her home until legal pressure and the Daily Mail