By James Zug. March 15, 2001. © 2001 Funded by Squashtalk.com. Do not reproduce online without permission.
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When squash came into vogue as a pastime early in the twentieth century, it was natural that they would insist on playing the sport when they traveled and they traveled by ship.

EDWARD VIII
Courts on ships was nothing new. In the sixteenth century the French installed a court tennis (jeu de paume) court on a two-thousand ton brig. This century the Empress of Britain and the H.M.S. Queen Mary had courts. A young Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) grew so addicted to the game that in 1920 when he entered into the Royal Navy on a tour of the Antipodes, he had a court built for him on his battlecruiser, the H.M.S. Renown. This court, incidentally, helped spread the game of squash to Australia. The Prince entered the 1924 and 1926 British amateur championships at the Bath Club and was a keen supporter of the game until he gave up his throne for love.

TITANIC COURT
The most famous court on a ship was one used for just four days. On 10 April 1912 a White Star Line Triple-Screw Royal Mail Steamship sailed from Southampton bound for New York. The Titanic, 882 and a half feet long, had many amenities for its passengers: a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a Turkish bath and the latest import from Wiesbaden, mechanical bicycles or "electric camels."

And on Middle Deck (F) and Lower Deck (G), just forward of the foremost boiler rooms and adjacent to the post office sorting room, was a squash court. "A squash racquet court," read the notes on the Titanic's blueprints, "is provided on Deck F, and is in charge of a professional player. Tickets for the use of the Court may be obtained at the Enquiry Office 2s/2d [or 50 cents; it was one dollar to use the pool] per half hour to include the services of the Professional if required. Balls may be purchased from the Professional who is also authorised to sell and hire racquets. The court may be reserved in advance by applicaton to the Professional in charge, and may not be occupied for longer than one hour at a time by the same players if others are waiting."

An enclosed gallery, with an unsightly wire fence as protection from errant balls, provided viewing space for about half a dozen spectators on the F deck. The walls were made of steel, painted grey and the floor was made from Veitchi flooring compound. It certainly was a fast and loud court.

The professsional was Fred Wright. Twenty-four years old, unmarried, originally attached to the Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic, Frederick Wright gave his address as 12 Sterne Street, Shepherd's Bush, London, where his father William lived. He signed on for the statutory wage of one shilling, depending for his livelihood on tips. We know he gave a few. An American officer, Colonel Archibald Gracie, wrote in his memoir, The Truth about the Titanic (1913) about playing with Wright. Breaking the Sabbath, Gracie played squash with Wright before breakfast on Sunday, 14 April.

That evening when the unsinkable ship hit an iceberg, seawater rushed into boiler room number six, the room right next to the squash court. The water filled the room and flooded into boiler room five. By midnight the court itself was flooded; instead of two men swatting a ball, spectators saw in horror sea water splashing around. Above on the open decks, tension was high. Gracie bumped into Wright as they scrambled to the lifeboats. Gracie remembered his half past seven court the following morning. In a line almost too good to be true,

Gracie asked, "Hadn't we better cancel that appointment?" "Yes, we better," replied Wright, knowing that the court was under water. Wright went down with the ship. His body was never found.

Not all sailing squash professionals were destined to share in maritime disasters. There was a court on the great Queen Elizabeth. A successor to the Titanic, the Queens or Lizzy, as she was colloqually known, was the largest and most luxurious passenger liner in the world. After the Second World War, it maintained a regular schedule ferry service between Southhampton and New York (the QE2 has succeeded the Lizzy in this run today). The voyage took five days. Among the many amenities was a sweet-smelling cedar squash court. Unlike the Titanic, this one had a large, comfortable gallery, for about fifty passengers.

BILL ASHCROFT: PRO AT SEA
The pro was an Irishman named Bill Ashcroft. Born in 1911 in Limavady in what is now Northern Ireland, Ashcroft had worked for fifteen years as a bobby for the London Metropolitan Police. In the 1930s police stations in London had squash courts, and Ashcroft, who was a physical training instructor, picked up the game. After the war, he heard about the job of squash pro on the Lizzy, and, forsaking his security as a bobby, applied and got the position.

"It was the greatest job ever," Ashcroft says today from his home near Los Angelos. "Those three years were among the best times of my life." He gave lessons, refereed and played games from eight to one and three to six. He was allowed to charge for the lessons, but after his maiden voyage to New York, he tore down his fee sign. The gym instructor, who had been at sea for twenty years, was shocked and told him he would starve to death. But on the return trip, leaving the fee up to the passenger, Ashcroft made double his money. "At sea," he says, "people are much more generous and relaxed."

For almost one hundred voyages, Ashcroft sailed on this floating hotel. He played with the famous and the rich, and even a few champion tennis players: Lady Iris Mountbatten, Hazel Wightman, Rex Harrison and Joe Louis. Michael Redgrave, Ashcroft remembers, always wore on court an old seaman's pea-cap. They played with a British ball and British scoring. Ashcroft never lost a match.

Eventually his wife and children had enough of his abscences, and Ashcroft decided to quit the ship and move to the U.S. He went to the U.S. embassy in London to enquire about a visa to the U.S., which, at the time, was very hard to get. The man there asked Ashcroft what his present job was. "I told him I was the squash pro on the Queen Elizabeth," he says. "He called some of his associates together and asked if I could bring back to London a few dozen American squash balls. A shortage of rubber in general and a longing for an American hardball meant there were no satisfactory squash balls available. The next fortnight I brought in the balls and he gave me my visa."

Ashore in New York, Ashcroft worked as a squash pro at the Racquet & Tennis Club before moving to southern California and teaching tennis and squash at a variety of clubs. Now ninety, Ashcroft looks back on his life and says, with the distinctive brogue of a boy of Limavady, "squash is a wonderful game."

[ Read Origins of Squash, also by James Zug]

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