back-lift and was rarely surprised by the quicker half-volley or yorker. Fingleton was often described as "courageous", in particular for his defiant batting against Bodyline. Fingleton often made self-deprecating comments about his batting, telling English cricket writer Alan Gibson that he "missed nothing" by not seeing him bat. He was also an athletic and gifted fieldsman, who built his reputation in the covers. Later he became noted along with Vic Richardson and Bill Brown in South Africa in 1935–36 as part of Bill O'Reilly's leg-trap. Neville Cardus, once described the Fingleton-Brown combination as "crouching low and acquisitively, each with as many arms as an Indian God". His partnership with Brown was regarded as one of the great opening pairings in the history of Australian Test cricket. In ten Tests together as an opening partnership, the pair averaged 63.75 for the first wicket, higher than any other Australian pair with more than 1,000 runs. Early years Born at Waverley in the inner eastern suburbs of Sydney, Fingleton was the third of six children. His parents were James, a tram driver and union organiser who became a member of the New South Wales Parliament, and Belinda May Webb. The family was Irish Catholic—Fingleton's paternal grandfather had immigrated to Australia in the 1870s. In 1913, at the age of five, Fingleton's father was elected into state parliament as a representative of the centre left, labour-union oriented Australian Labor Party, and the family moved into a larger house. It was here that Fingleton learned to play street cricket. Fingleton was educated at the Roman Catholic St Francis's School, in the inner city suburb of Paddington before moving to Waverley College. There he began a lifelong association with prose. In 1917, the family fell upon hard times when the elder Fingleton lost his seat and resumed his job as a tram driver, but in 1918 contracted tuberculosis. The father succumbed in 1920 when Jack was twelve, and the funeral director was Australian Test wicket-keeper Sammy Carter. Without their breadwinner, the Fingleton family were in further trouble and Belinda opened a seafood shop and withdrew her eldest son Les to support her. However, the business failed and the family home was at risk, so Jack was forced to quit school at the age of 12. He did a variety of jobs such as selling food at cinemas, washing bottles and sweeping floors. At the age of