In truth, I don’t remember all that much about this production. I’ve long been partial to a bit of Anouilh, which would have been the main reason we booked it.
Excellent cast, including Orlando Seale, Edward de Souza, Desmond Barrit, Ray Llewellyn, Roz McCutcheon, Amy Marston, Susan Tracy & Geoffrey Beevers.
This was a very good production of this iconic play. I had been keen to see a decent production of it and was not disappointed by the National’s effort.
I don’t think we’d heard for Michael Sheen before this production; he was excellent as Jimmy Porter and Emma Fielding was also excellent as the long-suffering Alison.
To the Questors with the Duchess of Castlebar (Janie’s mum) to see a student production.
No danger that The Duchess had to fork out for our tickets (I think she only took us to shows of any variety there on guest freebies).
Anouilh comedies tends to be quaint and within the grasp of student drama groups, so I suspect that the production was pretty good, but my log is silent on the matter.
I escaped the duty to reciprocate the freebie tickets with a dinner, because Janie and I went on to Rupert Stubbs’s 40th birthday do on Sailing Barge Resourceful in Chiswick.
Resourceful, now relocated to the estuary as a tea house
Given that we had fed the multitudes the week before for The Duchess’s birthday…
Judging by all the scribbles in Janie’s diary, she put a heck of a lot of effort into arranging a family do at Sandall Close for her mum, Pauline (Duchess of Castlebar)’s 70th birthday.
The out of town bits of the family will have stayed at local hotels.
The menu and arrangements look to me as though she got Murray Tollemache aka The Pie Man to cater this one. He was certainly one of our favourite dudes for Z/Yen functions at that time and the order list of pies is a bit of a giveaway.
Strangely, 25 years after the event (and many more years after Murray started The Pie Man business, he’s still going strong under the name TPM Catering.
Most of the family probably appreciated the effort that Janie had gone to. The Duchess almost certainly didn’t.
Coincidentally, Janie and I went to see Dinner With The Family with the Duchess the following week.
How or why they reached their decision to invite me to join them in 1999 is shrouded in mystery and secrecy, other than to say that I was working very closely with Charles, Nigel and Jeff at that time; I suspect cricket came into the casual conversation quite a few times.
My diary suggests that I originally planned to make it a day trip on that Thursday but reworked my plans into a three day visit to the West Midlands, the first two of which revolved around several meetings organised by Charles and (separately) Jeff and Nigel at The Children’s Society’s West Midlands Conference Centre, Wadderton.
Wadderton, The Spiritual Home Of the Heavy Rollers
Wadderton – Photo by Charles Bartlett
In the early years of The Heavy Rollers (and, heck, 1999 was only the second year of this great tradition) the overnight meal and chat at Wadderton before the match was a quintessential element of the experience. So was the enjoyment of a David Steed picnic at the cricket (see example in headline photo), lovingly prepared by David (who ran Wadderton) and schlepped by him and several others of us to Edgbaston.
Those who rolled in 1999 (and the nicknames I gave them all some years later) were the following:
Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett;
Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks;
“Big Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye;
David “David Peel” Steed;
Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett (like me, a 1999 initiate);
Me “Ged Ladd”.
Only one 1998 character was dropped from the original 1998 five; Paul “Fifth Beatle” Griffiths. The who, what and why of Paul’s “dismissal” should be told by someone far better able to explain than me (Nigel). One of the reasons, as I understand it, was Paul’s inability to engage realistically with the prediction betting game.
The Prediction Betting Game
Ah, the prediction game! One of the several traditions that appears to have emerged almost fully formed in the earliest incarnation of the Heavy Rollers. Jeff was the curator of that game originally, handing out sheets asking attendees to predict, at the start of the day, an array of different scores and match factors achieved at various intervals in the day. 50p per line, placing a theoretical five to seven pounds at risk, although most people would end up merely a pound or two up or down. It’s not about the money, it’s about the bragging rights. Actually, come to think of it, it’s not even about that. It’s traditional, so of course we do it each year.
Within two or three years, I had taken up the prediction game mantle from Jeff, as my mental arithmetic and precision in applying rules was deemed, by the majority, to be superior to that of Jeff; not the highest benchmark I have ever exceeded, but there we go. I think I might even have carried forward Jeff’s traditional mis-spelling of the word Edgbaston as Edgebaston the first time I did the sheets. Below is the earliest version that survives in electronic form – 2004 -but this e-template was created in 2002.
The Steed Picnic Followed By (As Night Follows Day) The Steed Snooze
The headline picture (one of Charles’s many superb efforts) depicts an example of a David Steed-style picnic (actually Jeff Tye brought this picnic, in 2003 as it happens), set out atop the fence at the front of the Priory Stand. In those days, the Priory Stand’s front row extended pretty much to the boundary, making those seats an excellent front row view and an opportunity to chat with unsuspecting fielders who might be standing very close indeed to us, guarding that part of the boundary.
The coloured clothing is kids playing Kwik Cricket during lunch
Beady-eyed observers and cricket historians will observe, to the right of the picture, a plastic cup filled with lightly coloured liquid that resembles, in look, white wine. It is white wine. David always ensured that there was plentiful wine for the picnic. In those early years, I think it was still permissible to bring alcohol into the ground. Latterly, when such permission was revoked, various “drinks muling” operations were devised. David’s best was un-shelling wine boxes and disguising quite large quantities of wine as picnic coolers at the bottom of his hamper.
Most would take some wine with the lunch. Some would also be partaking of beer; some would stick with beer, some would only drink wine.
Most of us, if we are being honest, would be a little hazy on the details of the sessions of play after lunch. But David could be relied upon to go a step or two further, having an extended snooze – sometimes dropping off even before the resumption of play after lunch. It was part of the Heavy Rollers tradition. It would have been rude of David not to snooze. It would have been even more rude of us not to observe the snooze and incorporate the only uncertain aspect of it (the exact timing) into the prediction game.
That Particular 1999 Heavy Rollers Event
I especially remember socialising at Wadderton on the evening before the event. It was possibly the first time that I had spent significant social time with Nigel and Jeff. I had got to know Charles a year or so earlier and therefore better – not only through work events at Wadderton that had required overnight stays and evening time together, but also through the early Z/Yen & Children’s Society sporty socials, including cricket, tennis & even ten-pin bowling (Ogblogs to follow).
One aspect of the night before which sticks in my mind is seeing a “big match build up” piece on the TV – I think it might have been on the local West Midlands news – but this was excitingly unusual for me as I had no TV in those days. I would sometimes see TV at Janie’s place but I don’t think I’d previously experienced that feeling of watching a news/magazine item on the TV and thinking “I’ll be there witnessing that tomorrow”.
I remember little, in truth, about the day itself, other than the impressionistic view that I had a superb time and very much hoped that the experience would be repeated…
…although I’m not sure that I would have imagined in my wildest dreams that the tradition would be sustained into a third decade.
I used to buy a programme in those days (I gave up on that some years ago as I tended barely to look at them after I while – I still have my 1999 one.
I do remember wanting and advocating for bowling changes far too frequently. Every time I said “I think they should have replaced so-and-so” – more than once Andy Caddick -that bowler would go on to take a wicket…or two.
I also recall wondering out loud whether Nasser Hussein was desperate bringing Mark Butcher on to bowl before lunch, only for Butch, naturally, to take a wicket. Jeff Tye in particular found my low-grade captaincy ideas hilarious.
One tradition that was not formed from the outset, but which flowed from/after the 1999 gathering, was the idea that one day of Heavy Rolling at the test was insufficient for our cricketing appetites and that we should aim for two henceforward.
I suspect that most of the others stayed at Wadderton after that 1999 day at the test and I’m not too sure how I got my luggage and myself back to London. I suspect that David Steed had arranged a mini-bus of some sort to take the group back to Wadderton and arranged for my luggage to be brought on it. I vaguely remember being dropped at Five Ways and wending my way back to Birmingham New Street and then home from there.
When I say “home”, I was staying at Janie’s that summer while “The City Quarters” were being refurbished. That explains why I recall watching highlights on the TV at the end of that day – another rare treat for me at that time.
The Aftermath
I wrote to most of the Rollers at 9:00 the next morning:
To: HINKS NIGEL; BARTLETT CHARLES; TYE JEFF Subject: 1 July 1999
also to David by post
Just a quick note to thank you all for the good company yesterday and especially to thank Nigel for organising it and David for making the splendid spread. It was a super day out.
Sun is shining today – easier wocket – here’s to 350+ for England. (Hope springs……..)
See you all soon.
Ian
Charles wrote the following response to all the e-mailees at lunchtime:
Having just heard that England are 45 for 6 I think 350 is a trifle optimistic!..
Charles
In a vain attempt to extricate myself with my dignity intact, I wrote the following missive at 7:30 a.m. on the Monday:
Gentlemen
Like I said – 350+ 1st innings (226 NZ + 126 Eng = 352 – which is more than 350) – there’s creative accounting for you. Anyway, England won and the naysayers were confounded.
Ian
Nigel responded pithily:
(Never)Trust an accountant!
The Heavy Rollers tradition of post-match e-mail bants was now well and truly formed. Although, given my dire prediction skills in 1999, the biggest surprise is that the elders of The Heavy Rollers didn’t give me “the Fifth Beatle treatment”, but instead, thank goodness, invited me back again…and again…and again…
I was reminded of this incident in June/July 2019 while Lord’s is too busy with the cricket world cup to allow us to play real tennis there, so several of us are playing in exile at Queen’s.
The recovered memory arises because these 2019 visits, like the 1999 one, are occuring just after the ATP tournament has finished at Queen’s, making the place a bit of a maze/building site. This is not a complaint, btw – I think it is very generous of Queen’s to let us real tennis addicts play there at such a disrupted time.
My 1999 visit at the same time of year was an invitation for an after-work game of tennis by my friend/client Abe Koukou, who was a member of The Queen’s Club and who knew that Janie and I play modern (lawn) tennis regularly.
I told Abe, truthfully, that I had never played at Queen’s before and that I was delighted to be invited.
Which was true.
What I omitted to tell Abe, because it seemed irrelevant at the time, was that I did know The Queen’s Club rather well, having done some advisory work for the Club back in the early 1990s. At that time, I was still laid up with my multiply-prolapsed spine and had been unable to play. Indeed had that not been the case, I might have got addicted to real tennis back then. I do remember Howard Angus showing it to me when there was a major tournament on, being fascinated by it and feeling regretful that I was not fit enough to give real tennis a try back then.
Some 27 years after my first look at real tennis at Queen’s…
…but I digress.
Point is, although Abe was hosting my first go at playing tennis at Queen’s in June 1999, I knew the place pretty well.
On our arrival, Abe was discombobulated by the cordons and the fact that his usual route to the changing rooms was blocked off. But I knew multiple ways around the complex.
That’s OK, we can get there this way instead
..said I, going into automatic and taking the route past the squash and real tennis courts.
I thought you’d never played here before?
…said Abe, quizzically.
I explained.
After our tennis match, my first experience of playing on carpet as a surface as well as my first experience of playing at Queen’s, we retired to the bar.
There, by the bar, was Jonathan Edwardes, then the Club Secretary (a role now called the Chief Executive Officer).
Hello Ian, how lovely to see you here. So sorry I wasn’t able to accept Michael’s invitation onto that sailing barge of his. I’d have so enjoyed that…
At this juncture, Abe’s eyes widened a little, so I introduced Abe to Jonathan.
It then dawned on me that I had inadvertently, but comprehensively, deployed a version of gamesmanship, known as guestmanship.
The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship, or the Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating by Stephen Potter
I have long been a fan of Stephen Potter’s books and especially like the Gamesmanship one.
In the Guestmanship section, Potter explains that the host at a sports club is at an advantage…
He is playing on his home ground. He knows the ropes…there are plenty of opportunities for making his guest feel out of it…
…so the seasoned gamesman finds ways to reverse the advantage, by mugging up on the host’s club. The prepared gamesman ensures that the host:
would wonder whether he was a host in any valid sense…indeed he would begin to wonder whether he really was a member of his own club.
Potter then gives some examples of what the gamesman might do to deploy guestmanship masterfully…
…but I must say that none of Potter’s examples seem to me quite as masterful as my guestmanship at Queen’s that day in 1999. Indeed, I believe that my application of the art of guestmanship one-upped Stephen Potter’s original example. Having one-upped the one-upmanship chap, even inadvertently, is quite a thing.
So did my guestmanship result in Abe succumbing to my dark arts of tennis? Did it heck. Abe thrashed me in the first set (which reminds me, I need to go out to get some bagels). I did a little better in the second set.
And did the combination of my guestmanship and my comparatively limited skills at tennis make this the first and very last time I ever played at Queen’s with Abe? Of course it didn’t. Abe is such a genial, friendly and good-humoured fellow, he simply found the whole incident very funny. My subsequent visits as Abe’s guest were mostly with two other players making up a doubles that would be well matched. In real life, give me good sports (like Abe) over gamesmen any day.
But the book Gamesmanship, though over 70 years old now, is still a hoot; I do commend it.
This production began its life at The Young Vic in the autumn of 1998, wending its way to several regional theatres before returning to London in 1999, when we saw it at The Richmond Theatre.
Fascinating piece about the production in the Telegraph by Charles Spencer. Joe White assisted Max Stafford-Clark directing this piece after release from Wormwood Scrubbs:
Janie might have got more out of this production had she known all that and had she known then what she knows now about rehabilitation of former prisoners…or lack thereof.
Our verdict on this piece/production at the time:
I liked it more than Janie did
Possibly it helped that I know (and like) The Recruiting Officer better than Janie does/did.
The cast no doubt changed over the year or so it toured, but we saw David Fielder, Stuart McQuarrie, David Beames, Fraser James, Ian Redford, Mali Harries, Ashley Miller, Sally Rogers and Michele Austin. Not bad.
I have no doubt that we ate at Don Fernando’s afterwards…and why not? Well, 25 years later, we couldn’t because the place has now closed down.
Six Sonatas, K404, K474, K60, K462, K394, K477 by Domenico Scarlatti
Aria con Variazioni “Le Frescobalda” by Girolamo Frescobaldi
In truth I was not familiar with the work of Leo Brouwer. Fabio Zanon is clearly a fan and has (far more recently) produced a helpful explainer video about the composer:
We were really taken with the young guitarist’s playing of Scarlatti sonatas transposed for guitar. Here is a video that shows him in the late 1990s playing three such pieces:
We were very taken with Friday evenings at The Wig in those days – it seemed a very relaxing way to round off a hard week. Writing 25 years later…still does.
Image “Diving For A Tie” produced in collaboration with Dall-E
The headline is a little deceptive, because Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett and I were not in Barcelona the City, but we were, along with a great many Z/Yen people and one or two other Children’s Society people, in Barcelona, the tapas and wine bar in The City.
Twenty years later, at the time of writing, Barcelona is still there – click the image for a link.
I had spent the whole day in the City. My diary says we had a PAYE inspection that day. I think it might have been that magnificent day that the inspector challenged us for claiming that we had an expenses procedure dispensation (which of course we did have) as he could find no record of us ever having been issued with such a dispensation. Linda Cook went to the archive files and dug out our dispensation letter which happened to have been issued by “Phil”, the very tax inspector who was before us that day. He almost apologised, claiming that files had been lost in an office move. He didn’t stay long after that.
But of course you don’t win tax inspections; the best you can hope for is an honourable draw or a tie.
Which brings me to the World Cup Semi Final.
But before that I need to explain why Charley The Gent was at our offices that day. You see, Teresa Bestard, who was one of Z/Yen’s first employees and who had done a great deal of work for The Children’s Society under Charley’s auspices, was leaving Z/Yen that day.
Teresa was (is) a Catalan with roots in Barcelona and Majorca. She chose the Barcelona tapas and wine bar as a suitable venue for her leaving do.
I arranged to meet Charley and Tony to go through some business stuff at Z/Yen around 16:00, so they could conveniently join the leaving do afterwards.
On arrival, Chas did ask me if I was aware of the Australia v South Africa semi-final score. I wasn’t. He told me. I said it sounded close, but edging towards South Africa. Chas said he fancied Australia for the match. He wanted to bet. I said I don’t like to bet. He suggested a one pound stake. I accepted, with the proviso that if the match was a tie, both pounds would go to The Children’s Society.
Chas doing his Children’s Society cricket captain bit, back in 1998
We were not expecting to follow the latter stages of the World Cup Semi-Final, but Barcelona had other ideas. They were pumping the match out on big screens throughout the bar.
Great…
…said the cricket tragics, e.g. me and Charley. Teresa did not seem well pleased. She was already vocally irritated with us for a supposed slight; we had invited Mary O’Callaghan along to the event. Teresa saw this as Z/Yen inviting Teresa’s replacement to Teresa’s own leaving do. Actually we had hired Mary before we even knew that Teresa was leaving and had asked Mary along to several events to meet the team before she joined; this was the one she could make.
Some neutrals, such as Jacqueline Goldberg, Michael Mainelli and Linda Cook, used the language of indifference towards the cricket, but in truth couldn’t help but become more and more interested in the final overs of the match, as it became clear that the result was on a knife edge and the match was a real thriller.
I hope The Children’s Society made good use of the £2 it scored from that bet. The charity benefited from our subsequent charity matches to a much greater extent than this wager.
Below is a video of the highlights/denouement of that match:
Teresa’s leaving do went on for hours after the cricket finished and everyone relaxed into the wine and tapas. It was a very good leaving do for a very special member of the team.
But I’m afraid the cricket tragics amongst us will remember the evening primarily for that astonishing tied World Cup Semi Final, as we lived every moment on those big screens in Barcelona.
Eurydice Spencer Telegraph 15 Jul 1999, Thu The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Eurydice Cavendish Indy 14 Jul 1999, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Eurydice Billington Guardian 14 Jul 1999, Wed The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
