The closing match of the 1939 season had seen Maurice Turnbull sign off in typical fashion by scoring a fine century in Glamorgan’s first innings at Leicester before briefly appearing at the end of their second, after inverting the batting order to allow others to have a chance to bat as the game petered out into a draw. Shortly after the end of the season, Maurice married his fiancée, Elizabeth Brook – the daughter of an industrialist from North-east England – before swapping his cricket whites for the khaki uniform of the Welsh Guards and starting his military training.
Over the course of the next few months, Turnbull took every opportunity to return home to see his wife and they had broad smiles on their faces as the first of three children was born the following Spring, allowing the proud father to combine trips to South Wales on paternity leave with attending meetings of the Emergency Committee which had been set-up to oversee Glamorgan’s affairs. Chaired by Jack Bevan, it also included Johnnie Clay, George Cording and Norman Riches, whilst Arthur Brown acted as Honorary Secretary and Treasurer.
Almost as soon as War was declared, the Arms Park and St. Helen’s were taken over by the military, with former acting as a military training ground and the latter a base for the air raid police who were eager to protect the nearby docks. With the Club’s only property being the small office at 6, High Street, Cardiff, the Emergency Committee’s main concern was protecting the practice equipment at the Arms Park and their financial assets.
With many believing that the War would soon be over, they set in motion plans for a two-day fixture against a Somerset XI at Weston-super-Mare. As the dreadful events of the War unfolded, this was cancelled and by the end of The Battle of Britain in 1940 it was clear that life would be disrupted for some time with the Government calling for factories to keep working and build up replacements for military equipment lost at Dunkirk and the hasty retreat from Northern France.