Walter Lindrum OBE Wally and the game of billiards

Walter Lindrum CBE (1898–1960), billiardist, was born into a billiard- mad family in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, where his father ran a billiard hall and bookmaking business. In 1912 the family moved to Melbourne, where they were to operate the Lindrum billiard hall until 1943. Walter and his brother were coached by their father, who, according to Walter, was the best billiardist in the pre-World War I world. After his brother’s brilliant career petered out, Walter emerged as the pre-eminent player. In 1929 he went to England, where he quickly established himself as the greatest the world had seen. He made his largest competitive break, of 4137, in 1932. The 1930s were his peak years; he won the world billiards championship in 1933 and retained the title throughout the decade. In the 1940s, he abandoned competitive play. Lindrum is sometimes called the ‘Bradman of Billiards’, but based on the gulf between his level of skill and that of his rivals – at least one of whom fell asleep while the Australian made one of his amazing breaks – his biographer, Andrew Ricketts, makes the case for Lindrum’s being the greatest sportsman Australia has ever produced. The author of several books on billiards, in his later years he raised tremendous funds for Melbourne charities. His grave in Melbourne is marked by a marble-topped billiard table with a cue and three brass balls, erected by his fellow philanthropists in the Sportsmen’s Association.

Will Longstaff (1879–1953) grew up in Ballarat, where he studied art at the School of Mines before embarking for the Boer War. Proceeding to Europe, he attended art school in London. He joined the Australian Imperial Force in 1915, serving in Egypt before being invalided to England, where he was appointed a war artist and worked in camouflage and the Australian War Records Section. His best-known painting, Menin Gate at Midnight (1927) hangs in a curtained shrine-like space in the Australian War Memorial. A resident of England for the rest of his life, Longstaff undertook many portrait commissions. He is thought to have painted Lindrum in London in 1932, the year Lindrum made his record break.