[1] Battcock made the first of his two first-class appearances for the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1938 against Cambridge University.
[4] As an actor, under the name Oliver Gordon, he made his West End debut in The Midshipmaid in August 1931.
He subsequently played opposite such stage stars as Gerald du Maurier (in Diplomacy, 1933) and Seymour Hicks (in Vintage Wine, 1934),[5] as well as appearing in several films.
[6][7] During World War II he ran the Theatre Royal, Windsor, inaugurating its longstanding tradition of lavish pantomimes.
According to John Counsell, founder of the Windsor Repertory Company, he was able "for five years to maintain, in spite of the strains and stresses of man and woman power shortage, of rationing and lack of materials, an astonishingly high level of production.