Stephen Chalke, M.A., was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire in 1948 and is an author and publisher. He now lives in Bath.
He holds degrees in Drama, English and Philosophy, Mathematics and English Literature and has taught in adult, further and higher education. He combines writing and publishing with part-time university lecturing.
Through his private publishing firm, Fairfield Books, he has written and published several highly acclaimed biographical and historical cricket books. His collaboration with the late Geoffrey Howard, At the Heart of English Cricket, won the 2002 Cricket Society Book of the Year Award, and his biography of Bob Appleyard, No Coward Soul – The Remarkable Story of Bob Appleyard (co-written with Derek Hodgson), was chosen by Barry Norman as the Wisden Book of the Year for 2003. He also works for the Open University.
Publications
As author:-
1997 – Runs in the Memory – winner of the “Guardian Book of the Year”.
1999 – Caught in the Memory. These first two books are portraits of county cricket in the 1950s and 1960s.
2000 – One More Run (with Bryan ‘Bomber’ Wells) – this book recreates a dramatic match at Cheltenham in 1957.
2001 – At the Heart of English Cricket (with Geoffrey Howard).
2003 – No Coward Soul – The Remarkable Story of Bob Appleyard (with Derek Hodgson). This is the gripping, previously untold tale of one man’s triumph over repeated adversity.
2006 – Ken Taylor – Drawn to Sport. This book takes us into the worlds of football and art.
2006 – A Summer of Plenty – George Herbert Hirst in the Summer of 1906. This book charts George Hirst’s remarkable Summer of 1906.
2007 – Tom Cartwright – The Flame Still Burns (with Tom Cartwright). This book is a collaboration with the late Warwickshire, Somerset and Glamorgan player and coach.
As publisher:-
Fragments of Idolatry (2001) by David Foot, The Appeal of the Championship (2002) by John Barclay, Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket (2003) by David Foot, Born to Bowl (2004) by Douglas Miller, Charles Palmer: More Than Just a Gentleman (2005) by Douglas Miller and It’s Not Just Cricket (2006) by Peter Walker.
He writes a regular column, The Way It Was, for the “Wisden Cricketer” magazine and has contributed two series on great Ashes contests to “The Times”.