worsening international situation, the West Indies team sailed for home immediately on the conclusion of the final Test, abandoning several end-of-season fixtures. On his arrival home, Hylton announced his retirement from representative cricket. In his six Tests he scored 70 runs with the bat, average 11.66, and as a bowler he took 16 wickets, averaging 26.12. In his whole first-class career of 40 matches he scored 843 runs, average 18.73, and took 120 wickets at 25.62. He also held 31 catches. Post-cricket Marriage and domestic life Hylton's status as an international cricketer helped him, on his return home, to get a better-paid job, with the Rehabilitation Department of the Jamaican Civil Service. In 1940 he met and began courting Lurline Rose, the daughter of a police inspector. In the racially-conscious and class-ridden Jamaican society, Hylton ranked well below the Roses in terms of education and social standing. Despite his cricketing fame, Lurline's parents vehemently opposed the match, but their objections were overridden and the couple married in 1942. The marriage seemed a happy one, and a son was born in 1947. Lurline Hylton was ambitious, and wanted to be a fashion designer; this involved spending lengthy periods of time away from home, training in New York fashion schools. To accommodate this, in 1951 the Hyltons moved into the Roses’ home, so that Lurline's mother could take over childcare duties during her absences (her father had by this time died). Hylton's relations with his mother-in-law were uneasy, but otherwise the arrangement appeared to work. Although his playing days were over, Hylton remained a respected figure in Jamaica cricketing circles. Jeff Stollmeyer, who had toured England with Hylton in 1939 and became the West Indies captain in the early 1950s, refers to Hylton as "a studious cricketer and one with whom I spent many hours in the late forties and early fifties watching and learning". Stollmeyer describes Hylton as a commanding personality, but with a fiery temper that had led him into trouble with the cricket authorities on more than one occasion during his career. In mid-April 1954 Hylton received from New York an unsigned letter, informing him that his wife was engaged in an adulterous relationship with one Roy Francis, by repute a notorious womaniser. Greatly disturbed, Hylton consulted his family before sending Lurline a curt telegram demanding that she return home immediately. She replied in emollient fashion: "Don't worry, all