I was still at school when I first met the great Neil Marks.

There was some discussion between my school principal at St Leo's College, the truly inspirational Brother Brian Berg, and Neil about whether I should be playing grade cricket or continuing to focus on school cricket. As much as I felt I let down Brother Berg, I decided to focus on grade cricket with the Club. I had always wanted to represent Northern District Cricket Club based at what was then known as Waitara Park, later known as Mark Taylor Oval.

What an education. I was blessed to have Brian Berg as a school principal and cricket mentor. He was the most brilliant school principal, an Australian Schoolboys selector and manager, rolled a terrific wicket at the school #1 oval himself, took the First X1 away for country trips and had us stay in a local pub and engage with the locals rather than be billeted out, and a wonderful advocate for the Western Suburbs District Cricket Club and the legendary Wally Welham which was challenging! Imagine that sort of leadership from a Christian Brother! But that was the wonderful Brian Berg. Education was about like experiences.

And then to have the privilege of spending so much time with Neil was just more priceless life experience

https://www.cricconnect.com/profile/113/tim-ebbeck/blog/1963/neil-marks-rip-old-mate-and-thank-you

Great story, Tim and brilliantly written. When I was putting together the Randwick Petersham history, a few hours of those six and a half years were spent with Neil and Fay at their home. Easy parking too at his place. On the tennis court.
Anyway, the purpose of my visit was to discuss one of Randwick’s greatest cricketers–Neil’s father, Alex. Among the many stories that Neil told me, there was one which, unfortunately, I was unable to later confirm going through old newspaper scorecards and articles. But as you say, Neil never was one to let truth get in the way of a good story.
He explained it this way.
It was before the Harbour Bridge was built. Randwick was playing Northern District at Waitara. Quite a journey in those days and the Randwick team was packed into just two cars. The first car managed to get across the harbour on the ferry but when the second arrived, the ferry was out of action for a time.
When the first car arrived at the ground with just five occupants (all the bowlers), the NDs captain (whose name escapes me for the moment) insisted that play begin on time and winning the toss, sent Randwick in to bat. A couple of hours later, the second car (containing all the batsmen) duly arrived. Neil says that Alex was delighted to see the bowlers limbering up on the ground and complimented them on their eagerness. However, his attitude quickly changed when he was informed that they were just about to take the field for ND’s second innings as they had already been bowled out twice!