In case you can’t be bothered to click but can be bothered to read my scribblings, the plan was for me and Chas to go to Radlett to watch some cricket, after which we would retire to Noddyland where Dot, Chas’s wife would join Chas, me and Janie for dinner.
In the end it rained such that cricket made no sense but a very pleasant dinner still made sense.
I’ll leave the final word to Chas:
…we had a great time yesterday, the house and garden are both very beautiful, the area is gorgeous, you both have made a very good decision to live there.
I felt a little embarrassed as the food was everything thing I adore, and lovely wine too!
To my amazement Dot enjoyed the Salmon and really enjoyed the hospitality, even the singing and ‘metal’ playing!
Don’t forget the option for you to see cricket at Essex is still very much open – just let me know some possible dates and I will organise.
I rather like that write up in retrospect. I think you get a sense of the joy to be had just passing a day with a friend (or friends) watching cricket.
The Journey & The Night Before The Match; 8 August 2013
This adventure was very nearly stillborn for me and Janie, as she was very poorly in the couple of days leading up to our trip up to Durham for the fourth Ashes test of 2013. Indeed, Janie, who is normally very averse to taking antibiotics, had almost bullied her doctor into prescribing same, as her throat was so sore from whatever summer bug/flu she had caught.
Janie said she felt a bit better on the morning we were setting off; I agreed to do most if not all of the driving as long as we had breaks. Soon after we started our drive north, Janie started coughing like (in retrospect, writing this in 2022) a Covid-19 victim. I suggested that we turn around, but Janie insisted that we persevere.
I recall that I had bought/brought some Prefab Sprout and Kane Gang music to get us into the County Durham spirit and that we were listening to The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll at that juncture.
But I digress.
It was a relatively small and diffuse gathering of Heavy Rollers that year. Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks had Viv (“Mrs Father Barry”) with him but she was seeing friends and didn’t want to join us for any cricket. They had arranged to stay in a “bijou but entirely satisfactory, and generously-equipped, terraced-cottage on Gilesgate”, in Durham, which is just a few miles away from Chester-le-Street.
Not wishing to be outdone by “bijou” in Durham, I had found a well-reviewed “boutique-style” place at a similar distance to the ground, in Seaham, The Seaton Lane Inn. In the end there were just the three of us staying there, me, Daisy and Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett; Dot (Mrs Malloy) originally planned to join us, but withdrew a few weeks before the event.
Chas was very kind and concerned about Daisy the night we arrived. She didn’t want to eat dinner – we had brought a few “easy to swallow snacks” with us. But in the end she did come down and join us for a while. Chas and I enjoyed a good meal at that place – Chas especially being taken with the Villa Wolf Riesling I well remember.
Chas took a picture of me and Daisy in the restaurant – I must say she looks healthier than me – but perhaps I had slightly overindulged in the Villa Wolf by then…or perhaps this picture was taken a little later in the trip, when Daisy was feeling much better.
Three Days Of Cricket At Chester-le-Street, 9 to 11 August 2013
The cricket was excellent throughout the match, as of course was the company. Chas had secured us front row seats in a temporary stand, which turned out to be a good location with an excellent view.
We felt safe/”protected”, for much of the match, by a fairly sizeable group of “Knights Templar”, who got louder and more tipsy as each day went on. It’s just as well they were never called upon to defend our lives towards the end of the day.
Daisy was still not feeling very well on the first morning, but I persuaded her to join us on the basis that we could always get her cabbed home within 15-20 minutes if she felt she needed to lie down. Access to and from that Chester-le-Street ground is excellent, despite it being a little out of town.
Fortunately the fresh air, good weather and good cricket started to make Daisy feel better pretty quickly.
One of the evenings (I think possibly the evening after the second day’s play) all five of us (including Viv) dined, I think it was at Oldfields in Durham – pretty good but now gone.
If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket website, click here for a scrape of that piece. The tale of Nigel’s interaction with Jonathan Agnew for a personally-signed book and Chas’s attempt to obtain similar for no good reason is worth the price of admission alone. (There is no price of admission, btw). To quote Nigel reflecting, nearly 10 years later, on his visit to that shop with Chas…
Most [memorable]: “Boycott bingo “ and protestations to some innocent shop staff, possibly seeking a little supplementation to mounting student loans? I am certain I heard one say something along the lines of “that induction morning had precious little about this sort of thing, did it?” The other one appeared to slowly mouth “stick-of-rhubarb?” as she sought the exit.
Day Four – The Journey Home And Witnessing The Denouement On The TV
A small tinge of regret that we hadn’t booked to see four days, but still Janie and I enjoyed the last day as “driving home entertainment” on the radio and we were fortunate enough to get home in time to see the ending on the telly.
I wrote the following in an e-mail to the lads to summarise that day and the experience:
Janie really enjoyed the experience, despite her bad luck getting poorly a few days before the off. She is feeling so much better now.
What a win. We listened to the thrilling morning session and much of the frustrating afternoon session on the road.
Hippity points out that England didn’t get a wicket until he and Monkey-Face had been placed in front of the TV again, along with Hippity’s lucky ball.
Broad’s bowling once he got his hackles up again was extraordinary, especially as he did the damage with the old ball. And Bresnan’s ball to nip out Warner was possibly his finest yet.
2014 we host Sri Lanka and India. Too soon to start thinking seriously about it, I know!!
Thanks to you especially, Charles, for organising those amazing seats.
As the Kane Gang put it – “…this could be the closest thing to heaven…”
…about our most heavily rain-affected Edgbaston trip of all.
“The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened’ by Don Robertson is an evocative journey back to the early 1950s. Readers are introduced to a teenage Morris Bird III, considered by some to be one of the most endearing characters in contemporary American literature.
Our Edgbaston trip in 2012 was so lacking in memory that it is now, well, not memorable. Very little that was meant to take place actually did so.
It was as if we had been enticed to this sodden part of the UK to be teased with the promise of things that almost happened. Morris Bird may well have speculated?
Perhaps we were being tested on our resolve as real Heavy Rollers. Could we cut it when things were bad?
I recall my solitary mission to the nearby cricket ground in advance of the others. They were perhaps still somewhere on the M6 arguing about the relative merits of Delta and Detroit Blues genres, while a dozing Nick yearned for some early Metallica.
Knowing Charles’ detailed preparations before any pre match knockabout, the ‘cricket kit’ would have been checked (several times before being unpacked and repacked) in readiness for our long-awaited net. This was scheduled to take place at Harborne CC. To grace this attractive little ground, in leafy suburban Birmingham, was to be a privilege indeed. All a direct consequence of some emotional story- telling from Charles to some unaware individual who was to forever regret their selfless move to the ‘phone with, “I’ll get it”. Charles had become a master of spin. This had little to do with his ability to pick a ‘Doosra’. Detailed and distressing tales would be discharged to whomever got the job of dealing with random emotive requests, mostly for tickets. Much was at stake this time. A chance to display limited abilities for a donation. It would be a wonderful prelude to the main course.
The scene, however, was a precursor to the forthcoming event. The said ground was deserted. The outfield resembled a small lake. If anything had been planned for this evening it had long been called off. Phone calls from office to office relaying the unhappy, but inevitable, news. I couldn’t avoid observing that the early season volunteers, allocated to small working groups tendering the ground, had failed miserably to:
Clean around the area you want to repair with a wire brush to remove loose paint or rust.
Use an old screwdriver to dig out any old jointing material.
Put the nozzle of the sealant gun into the joint, and run a bead of roof and gutter sealant around the pipe.
One side of the pavilion’s guttering resembled a waterfall. Safe to say the kit wouldn’t be making an appearance this year.
I returned to Harborne Hall with heavy heart, but gratified by the familiarity of our accommodation, and its proximity to some decent restaurants on Harborne High Street for later. High quality Chinese food surely? At least we would be reunited and sustained by our past recollections of basic, but friendly, home-from-home accommodation. It was soon to be revealed that this just was a futile memory, unless your home was a Category C prison.
The corridors still echoed with the long past anticipation and apprehension of eager volunteers, about to make their way to various VSO outposts around the world. The evocative black and white photographs of some wiry young men with mullets, and women in cheesecloth skirts, dancing self-consciously with grateful African children, or in makeshift classrooms, adorned the stairways to our rooms. Such warm recollections were soon to be illusions, as the march of commercialism that had begun to engulf this little haven took shape. It was becoming transformed into something neither here, nor anywhere really. VSO were still present somehow, but surrounded by an impression of a low budget boarding house with an identity crisis.
The futile negotiations over extra breakfast toast rather summed up the whole affair. Jokes about when parole became due and “are you in Block H?” were tinged with reality. As Ian has described, we didn’t see any cricket either. Given that was the whole purpose it could be argued things were not going too well.
I recall walking back from the equally uninviting and playless Edgbaston in time for a planned tour of the local graveyard. This was advertised on a display outside the adjacent church amidst notices, it transpired, unchanged for many a decade. I should have twigged on reading the one with rusty drawing pins, congratulating the Mother’s Union for raising £7 19s 11d for Church upkeep. My children have often reiterated their displeasure when on holiday, mostly in France, when I would enthusiastically jump from the car and excitedly head off (alone) towards a remote cemetery or graveyard. This would make up a little for earlier non-events.
Wet through from my walk back, I just made the appointed time only to be met with a resounding silence, where I imagined the throng would now be congregating.
Just me then. The church was securely locked and, without a guide, any chance of an educational tour of the graves was out of the question. So, given I was staying one further night, I returned to the honesty bar at Harborne Hall before lock down and lights out. I left rather early the next morning, not stopping for toast.
This was to be the final ‘non-event’ of the 2012 gathering, so dominated by things that almost happened….
Photo, thanks to Charles Bartlett, probably unconnected…unless Chas was building an ark and starting to populate it during this trip
It rained.
There shouldn’t be much else to say.
It rained for the entirety of our visit.
When I started typing the headline of this piece, I typed “Wet Indies” rather than “West Indies” by mistake. Or was it a mistake? Spooky.
To add to the disappointment of this visit, Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett had, as usual, organised a blinder of a visit, including our front row seats in the Raglan Stand and nets early in the evening on the day before the test, at Harborne CC, just up the road from our residence at Harborne Hall.
We had a roadworks/lane closure filled journey up to Birmingham. Chas had kindly offered to give me a lift from the outer reaches of the Central Line (Redbridge? Gants Hill?), so the three of us (including Nick) had plenty of time to bicker about music choices in the car.
If I recall correctly, Chas and I were both on a bit of an electric blues odyssey at that time, so (two to one) we mostly settled on Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters for that journey. In any case, I’m listening to my playlist of those artistes to tweak my memory as I write.
However, once we were on the M6 scooting through the West Midlands getting close to Birmingham, we saw some dark sky ahead. rather a lot of it. Rain clouds. Wet rain. Very wet rain. We arrived at Harborne Hall in what could only be described as a tropical-style storm. That storm passed pretty soon after we arrived, but we more or less knew that the soaking was bound to have put our nets at risk. We went down to Harborne CC in hope more than expectation, only to have our fears confirmed. Pools on the outfield and around the nets. No chance of a net.
We’d seen the gloomy weather forecast for the first two days of the test, of course, but still we hoped for a further 36 hours.
I remember little about our two evenings in Harborne that year. I think we went to Harborne’s very satisfactory Chinese restaurant, Henry Wong, one of the evenings, I think that first night. Perhaps the others can remember where else we went.
I remember a lot of sitting around at Harborne Hall. I remember the other three deciding to go down to the ground, despite the pouring rain and no sign of respite. I remember staying back, making some notes about Heavy Rollers visits from years gone by, which are now proving to be a most useful starting point for this blogging.
I also remember how much Harborne Hall had declined since our last visit. Not down to Beechwood Hotel levels – those depths would take some plumbing – but still decline. Harborne Hall had been the VSO conference centre, run along similar lines to The Children’s Society’s Wadderton. But it seemed that VSO had sold (or at least put under management and attempted to commercialise) Harborne Hall. The resulting approach had subtracted almost all of the friendly, folksy character of the place, leaving only the distressed gentility and a rather grasping approach to commercialism.
The nadir for our visit was on the final morning, when Nigel made the mistake of asking for an additional slice of toast with his breakfast and was informed that he would be charged extra for that extra slice. Did I see steam starting to come from Nigel’s ears? I don’t remember exactly how this matter was resolved. Nigel probably does recall.
The other occupants of Harborne Hall were now mostly peripatetic tradesmen. We played some pool and I think darts with some of them, at least one of the evenings, during that stay. We more or less held our own. Perhaps they were more inebriated or had failed to mis-spend their youths playing those games any more than we had.
I also don’t remember when we bailed out of this hopeless situation. I don’t think we stuck around too deep into the second day. I don’t even remember whether Chas gave me a lift back to the Essex borders or whether I stuck with my original plan to take the train home after the game.
It was the first time that the first two days of a test match had been entirely rained off in England since 1964. Not even the modern drainage could save play from that type of relentless rain. This telegraph piece has a lovely photo.
Despite the fact that we saw precisely nothing of this match live, it still counts as one of our Heavy Rollers matches in my view, so here is the scorecard. No surprises that the match was a draw, but there was a surprising stand between Dinesh Ramdin and Tino “mind the windows” Best who put on nearly 150 for the last wicket, Tino managing a batting-career-defining 95 of them.
Crickey, I have generated some 900 words, merely to elaborate on the main point, which I managed to get across in the first two words.
Our little group for this day of test cricket comprised Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, Mac Small (who used to look after our cars, Noddy & Nobby, at Ruislip Honda), me and Daisy.
Daisy and I both recall that I was on picnic duty that day, so I no doubt did the smoked salmon bagels thing, plus probably some ham and cheese rolls or something of that ilk.
Everyone brought their wine/beer ration which made for a jolly day in the spring sunshine. Not “o-t ‘ot” but certainly “very very warm for May”. We were either in the Upper Compton or the Upper Edrich – I cannot remember which. Good seats, I do remember.
Mac hails originally from Barbados. Charley seemed convinced that Mac must be related to the great Gladstone Small. Indeed Chas failed to hide his extreme disappointment when Mac informed him, rather emphatically, that he and Gladstone were not related. Mac and Chas spoke little after that.
In truth, Mac is a fairly quiet chap and seemed to be enjoying his day at Lord’s in a rather Zen style, while Chas and I chatted incessantly about cricket, as usual. Daisy drifted between a quiet state and joining in the conversation.
England were doing rather well, it has to be said. We saw Andrew Strauss score a ton, which was always a bonus for us, especially for Daisy, who single-handedly revived Straussy’s career with a pep talk back in 2008 – a matter to be Ogblogged in the fullness of time.
We vaguely recall that Mac left a little earlier than the rest of us, but not very early. Daisy and I are pretty sure Mac enjoyed his day, as afterwards he often referred to it, in only positive tones.
Also there was the backdrop of the riots that summer, which were unfolding as we arrived and during our stay, although leafy Harborne seemed unaware of or at least untouched by them.
Naturally Nigel and I made the most of it without Chas. It would be cruel to harp on about the extent to which we were nevertheless able to enjoy ourselves despite Chas’s indisposition. In any case, I doubtless harped sufficiently when I saw Charles again a bit later that season.
It must have been especially galling for Chas as I seem to recall he had gone to a great deal of trouble that year to secure our “honorary” front row seats, book nets, book rooms, book an Indian feast…oy!
I believe that I drove up that year having booked the extra night after the second day’s play. That might have been Nobby’s only visit to Harborne Hall.
Unusually the first day of a Lord’s test match on a Friday.
That day I went with Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, Ian “Iain Spellright” Theodoreson and Mark “Uncail Marcas” Yeandle.
The following extract from my e-mail to Mark and Chas the day before reveals the expectation of a very hot day:
Weather looks set fair for tomorrow.
Please could you both bring plenty of water with you. I’ll have my hands full and Ian T was muttering about “fancy juices” as his contribution to the soft drink side of things, but I think we might all need good old fashioned (still) H2O. Especially given the weather and the picnic I have planned.
Don’t forget your booze rations also – as if I had to remind you about that!…
Mark threatened (and saw through his threat) to bring some Frittenden strawberries with him. His strawberry offering the previous year had gone down an absolute treat. If you look closely at the picture of Charles below from that report, you can make out the colour and shape of a Frittenden strawberry. The 2011 batch was delicious, but I believe the 2010 batch was “peak strawberry”.
Click the photo or the link below to see that May 2010 match reported in full
A few years later there was a potentially ugly fruit incident, as Ian and Mark were reunited with me at the test on the same day. Mark brought famous Frittenden strawberries while Ian brought a giant bag of plump cherries that he had been unable to resist en route. This competitive soft fruit showdown could have been very bloody indeed, but it mercifully led only to MAD (mutually assured delectation):
Back to planning for a very hot June day in 2011. Chas wrote back threatening to soak me in factor 30 sunscreen.
I don’t recall the exact nature of Ian T’s fancy juices, but I think they might have been the flavoured water variety, which does work rather well on a ludicrously hot day.
Ian T seems to specialise in weather extremes when he comes to Lord’s with me. Our 2014 visit (which will eventually be published on King Cricket, I believe) was one of the hottest days I ever remember at Lord’s and Ian nearly melted.
I suspect that I was quite careful with the booze, because I was going to see a late night concert of Paco Peña at the Wigmore Hall after stumps. I suspect that all of us were a bit careful with the booze, partly because it was a very hot day.
I do recall this one, despite the heat, being an especially enjoyable, dreamy day at Lord’s. England were hot off the back of an away Ashes win and had even won the first test of the summer the previous week. What could ever, possibly go wrong again for the England test team?
Janie’s diary suggests that we had a gathering in Sandall Close with Kim, Micky, John, Mandy, Lydia & Bella, but I think that idea fell through in the end. We might have had Kim & Micky over for a casual supper, but possibly not even that happened in the end.
14 August 2010 – The Boundary With Anthea & Mitchell
We certainly did have dinner with Anthea & Mitchell the following week, at The Boundary. Janie remembers a superb platter of fish. Janie remembers that we took drinks after dinner on a rather splendid roof terrace. We both recall that all of us thought the place very good – indeed I thought it so good that we ended up booking it for Z/Yen’s Christmas party four months later.
I also remember that we enjoyed a lovely evening in the company of Anthea & Mitchell.
21 & 22 August 2010 – An Ironic Weekend Of Kinesiology
Janie did a weekend Kinesiology course with Lisa Opie. The irony comes from me forgetting to cancel our tennis court and therefore using the slots to try and teach myself how to serve left-handed.
Note to self: don’t overdo an extreme movement such as the tennis serve using a shoulder that you have never previously used for that purpose.
Suffice it to say, Janie got a lot of practice using her kinesio tape (other therapeutic taping methods are available) on me in the aftermath of her course and my excesses.
Forearmed is forewarned – a few months later in India strapped up for cricket
24 August 2010 – A Net With Charley the Gent, Then Dinner At Seventeen
It took a review of the e-mails to find evidence on this one. Here is Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett’s take on the evening:
I am a complete mess this morning i am so unfit. It was great to have the net but to get some real benefit from it i do need a better level of fitness. My bowling disappointed me, felt ok about my batting and tonking you around the park. Your bowling is better, well at least somewhere the the timbers, your batting well anyone could hit my bowling at the moment. I need a return, maybe october sometime? Thanks for the meal it was very good. Best to all Chas
The meal was in Seventeen, by Royal Oak. Still there and still well regarded nearly 10 years on as I write in April 2020 – at least it was pre-Covid. Strangely, I do recall the meal being good but I have never returned there. I guess I am spoiled for choice in Bayswater and it is normally just a tad off my beaten track.
28 August 2010 – Day Three England v Pakistan Lord’s Test
A birthday treat for me at Lord’s with Daisy. I believe we were in the Upper Edrich for this one or it might have been the Upper Compton.
The match had been weather affected the first two days, so England were still accumulating their first innings runs at the start of the day.
