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Roland Perry (born 1946) is a Melbourne-based author, best known for his books on cricket. He has written numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction, including Monash: The Outsider Who Won The War, which won "The Federation of Australian Writers Melbourne University Publishing Award" in 2004. Perry has also written biographies on Sir Donald Bradman, Steve Waugh, Keith Miller and Shane Warne among others. Perry recently published his twentieth book; The Ashes: A Celebration, a book commemorating The Ashes.

Perry is a member of the Advisory Council of the National Archives of Australia; the Sir John Monash Foundation; and a director of the Spirit of Australia Foundation. He is also a member of the Alliance Francaise, the Melbourne Cricket Club, the Melbourne Football Club, the RSL (Elwood Branch), and an honorary member of the Murrumbeena Football Club coterie.

Roland Perry began his writing career as a journalist on the Melbourne Age from 1969 to 1973. His first editor (in the paper’s business section) was Les Carlyon (later author of ‘Gallipoli’ and ‘The Great War’) under Editor-in-Chief Graham Perkin. While working on the paper, Perry gained an Economics Degree at Monash University (1970-1972) and studied at Melbourne University, winning the Exhibition Prize and Frederick Blackham Journalism Scholarship in the subject ‘Journalism’ in 1969. (His primary education was at Murrumbeena State School and secondary education at Scotch College, Melbourne.)

He moved to England in 1973 to further his writing career and spent five years making documentary films, notably with feature-director Tony Maylam and documentary producer, Jack Grossman. Grossman was involved with ‘Arts for Labour’ (the UK Labour Party) under Neil Kinnock in his bid to unseat Margaret Thatcher as UK Prime Minister. Grossman was commissioned to make Labour’s television political broadcasts (party commercials). He brought Perry in to help produce a controversial 10 minute party advertisement refuting Thatcher’s claim that she had primary control of all nuclear weapons on UK soil. The sensational clip suggested that the US President still maintained his ‘finger on the button’ concerning US Cruise Missiles based in the UK and aimed at the (then) Soviet Union. Thatcher was forced to defend her claims in a hostile Parliament.

Perry's works have been the subject of some criticism, including from fellow cricket writer Gideon Haigh. Haigh was critical of Perry's book Captain Australia—a book on Australia's Test cricket captains—claiming that Perry had "... a disquieting tendency to, quite casually, mangle information for no particular reason" and "...  there are assertions whose origins are, at least, somewhat elusive." Referring to Perry's biography of Bradman, he said "the book-shaped object of Roland Perry, had "access" , and used it to mainly unenlightening, and sometimes tedious, effect".

The historian David Frith said of his book Miller's Luck, about Keith Miller, "Perry's work here is anything but confidence-inspiring. He is an opportunist author, Don Bradman, Shane Warne and Steve Waugh being among his previous subjects, together with a book on Australia's captains which gave the world nothing that the painstaking Ray Robinson had not already dealt with, apart from the update".

Frith said "the book is strewn with errors that undermine confidence in the work as a whole". He pointed out that Keith Johnson the cricket administrator was not the father of Australian cricket captain Ian Johnson, that Army cricketer JWA Stephenson was not the colonel who became the Marylebone Cricket Club secretary. Frith also noted that an error when Perry wrote that Cyril Washbrook took a run after being hit on the head it was not a bye, under the laws of cricket it would be a leg bye. He also noted that George Tribe was not a leg spinner. Tribe was a left-hander and leg spinners are right-handed. Frith also noted that Wally Hammond was not dropped for the final Test of 1946–47, but that he was out of action because he had fibrositis.

Of the same book, Ramachandra Guha said the Perry had done little except reword Miller's autobiography Cricket Crossfire. He said that "conversations are invented, thoughts imputed, motives intuited – without any directions as to their source or provenance". Guha also criticised Perry for mistakenly claiming that Lahore is in North West Frontier Province and for referring to Vijay Merchant as "Vijay Singh". He also criticised Perry for claiming that Miller and his Australian Services cricket team saw Merchant as a cheat when Miller called Merchant "one of the finest sportsmen India has produced".

Noel Annan, Baron Annan, in reviewing The Fifth Man, Perry's book accusing Victor Rothschild of being the fifth spy working for the Soviet Union of the Cambridge Five, cast doubt on whether Perry had actually interviewed Rothschild's relatives or whether he had made up material in his book.

Warwick Franks reviewed Bradman's Best, which was a book that profiled Bradman's selection of his greatest all-time XI and profiles of the players. Franks said "Perry's reverential approach turns the process into Moses bringing down the tablets from Mount Sinai. To Perry, Bradman is without spot or stain so that much of his writing, as in the earlier biography, takes on the air of hagiography". Franks criticised Perry for depicting Bradman as an all-powerful influence and prescient when it came to strategic successes as a administrator and leader, but when a dubious selection such as the omission of a leading player who had angered Bradman occurred, Perry blamed Bradman's administrative colleagues. Franks also criticised the large number of factual errors in the book, such as in the profile of Don Tallon.

References

1. "Roland Perry biography". andrew lownie literary agency. Retrieved 2007-12-12.
2. "Roland Perry". Random House Australia. Retrieved 2007-12-12.
3. The National Archives of Australia is charged with maintaining the memory of the nation. Other members of the Advisory Council are Mr Paul Santamaria (chairman), Mr Peter Grant (deputy chair); Professor Mick Dobson, Director AIATSIS; Senator Kate Lundy; the Honourable Alex Somlyay MP; Mr Ian Hancock; Mr Aladin Rahemtula; Mr David Irvine, Director-General of ASIO; Dr Dianne Snowden; Professor John Williams; Dr Helen Irving; Dr Mickey Dewar. The Sir John Monash Foundation promotes scholarship, leadership and Australia’s heritage and values. In particular, the Foundation raises funds for and administers the nation’s most prestigious postgraduate scholarships---Australia’s General Sir John Monash Awards. The Spirit of Australia Foundation was incorporated in 2005 to ‘remember and commemorate Australia’s heritage.’
4. Time Out Magazine London, UK, 23 September 1981.
5. ‘The Crisis Machine’, Penthouse Magazine UK, Volume 19, No 6, June 1984.
6. Haigh, Gideon (2004). "No Ball". Game for anything: Writings on Cricket. Melbourne: Black Inc. ISBN 1 86395 309 4.
7. Haigh, Gideon (2008-11-22). "The First Word". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2009-01-08.
8. ^ Frith, David. "Fault lines in a hero's tale". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2009-01-08.
9. ^ Guha, Ramachandra (2005). "Big hitter, Huge Heart". The Monthly: 60–62. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
10. "The Fifth Man". New York Review of Books. 1995-03-23. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |Accessdate= ignored (|accessdate= suggested) (help)
11. ^ Franks, Warwick (December 2002). "Bradman's Best". The Australian Public Intellectual Network. Retrieved 2009-01-08.

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