Batolin? Viobat? It's the cricket bat that's also a stringed instrument

A student at the Newark School of Violin Making has made a new stringed instrument from a cricket bat.

Robert Crooks, of Carlton, chose the unusual design to thank bat makers Gunn & Moore, who have donated off-cuts of willow to the school for several years and also gave him two bats.

The 61-year-old former BT employee is in his third year of a Violin Making And Repair course at the school and said fellow students were impressed.

“Everybody is intrigued by it,” he said. “They’ve all been very supportive and a few have had a play – some have even got some decent tunes out of it.”

Mr Crooks’ wedding reception was held at the Trent Bridge Inn in West Bridgford but he has never seen a game at Trent Bridge itself, and admits to being much more of a motorsport fan.

The painstaking process of turning the bat into a musical instrument took Mr Crooks around six weeks and involved work including hollowing out the centre and fitting a viola bridge.

“This has never been done before but I’m very pleased with it,” he said. “I’m now going to make myself another version with the other bat given to me by Gunn & Moore.

“I am starting late in this career but I love the school and next year I’m taking lessons to play the cello.”

He was so grateful for Gunn & Moore’s contributions to the school that he is due to present the bat to them on Saturday. It will go on show in the company’s trophy room at their Trent Lane, Colwick premises.