He was a very intense character – we used to tease him about that in the dressing room, and he did mellow over the years." Simon Briggs wrote: "There was little comfy or cosy about his cricket career. Rather, he fitted into a long tradition of hard-nosed English pragmatists – a lineage that runs from WG Grace, through Jardine and up to Nasser Hussain... To Bailey and company, the best way to honour the gods of cricket was to commit your heart and soul to the fight. For them, a Test match was a contest between two groups of warriors. Its entertainment value was almost irrelevant." He was renowned for his slow scoring in Tests against Australia, Neville Cardus writing of one innings in his book "Full Score" (1970, chapter "Cricket of Vintage"): "Before he gathered together 20 runs, a newly-married couple could have left Heathrow and arrived in Lisbon, there to enjoy a honeymoon. By the time Bailey had congealed 50, this happily wedded pair could easily have settled down in a semi-detached house in Surbiton; and by the time his innings had gone to its close they conceivably might have been divorced." He was nicknamed "Barnacle" for his implacable defensive batting. In Cardus's piece on him in "Close of Play", first published in 1956, he was more complimentary: "Some cricketers are born to greatness. Bailey achieved it... He conquers by tremendous effort... Yet Bailey... loves to attack any bowler... He has made catches bordering on the marvellous... It is no small thing to be a Trevor Bailey in a world of anonymous mediocrity." Bailey died in a fire in his retirement flat in Westcliff-on-Sea on 10 February 2011. His wife, Greta, survived. They had two sons and one daughter. The chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, Giles Clarke, described him as "one of the finest all-rounders this country has ever produced", while Jonathan Agnew, who worked with Bailey on "Test Match Special", wrote of him: "dogged batsman, aggressive bowler. Intelligent cricketer. Wonderfully concise pundit. Great sense of humour." He wrote the following books:   Alan Hill has written a biography: