Some Weeks Without Theatre, Music Or Overseas Travel, But With People, Late March To Early April 1998

Grand Hotel, Hove (public domain picture)

As we had planned to be away for most of March, but changed our plans due to Phillipa’s indisposition, we had a few weeks of relatively low key activity that spring. Yet we ended up meeting and seeing a lot of people.

Introduced To Nigel Hinks, 20/27 March 1998

I very rarely talk about work-related matters in Ogblog, but by my meeting Charles Bartlett (in Autumn 1997) and Nigel Hinks in March 1998, through The Children’s Society, a tradition that endures a quarter of a century later was established:

In the matter of being introduced to Nigel, my diary has clear notes. I had a meeting with Clive Timms on 20 March 1998, at which he gave me Nigel Hinks & Jeff Tye’s telephone numbers. I had an initial telephone call with Nigel the following week (27 March) and the rest, as they say, history.

Charles & Nigel 15 years later, Chester-Le-Street: Clive didn’t mention the singing

A Resourceful Party, Thanks To Rupert Stubbs, 28 March 1998

Then a Chiswick home, latterly a Maldon Tea House

After speaking with Nigel on 27 March I went to play bridge at Maz’s place (almost certainly with Andrea and Tessa on that occasion), then on to Janie’s place.

That Saturday lunchtime Janie and I went to a party on Rupert Stubbs’s Thames Sailing Barge of a home, Resourceful. This might have been my first “return to the scene of the crime that was Michael Mainelli’s stag night” since that night.

Janie and I remember this party surprisingly well. Rupie was going out with a lovely lass by the name of Sophie at that time. The party was mostly populated by people we didn’t know – i.e. we only knew a few of Rupert’s friends before the party. Most of the party goers were either Sophie’s fun friends, whom we got to know by dint of the party, and a rather cliquey crowd of Rupert’s colleagues from Saatchi & Saatchi who were, to say the least, not quite so friendly.

Here’s Rupie a few week’s later, at an early Z/Yen cricket match, donning whites in a Saatchi & Saatchi ad man stylee. The hat is an especially telling piece of non-cricket garb.

Anyway, the hospitality was lavish and there were plenty of fun people, so we had a really good time. We weren’t surprised when we learnt that Rupert had left Saatchi’s not all that long afterwards.

A Grand Time In Sussex, 3 & 4 April 1998

Records show that we stayed at The Grand Hotel in Hove – my first return to the place since my Geoffrey Boycott encounter there nearly 30 years earlier.

I think this visit was primarily to do with Janie doing a CPD course or joining a podiatrtist’s convention of some kind, but we were also able to combine it with a visit to Michelle & Neil’s [Epstein/Infield] place in Balcombe on the way back.

Central Balcombe Nigel Freeman, CC BY-SA 2.0

The hospitality will have been warm and friendly. I think that might have been the only time Janie visited Michelle & Neil’s place.

A Short Holiday In Brighton, During Which I Met Geoffrey Boycott & The Yorkshire Cricket Team, 3 September 1969

That short holiday in Brighton was one of the least memorable of my childhood, but for the fact that we happened to be staying in the same hotel as the Yorkshire cricket team.

I’ll explain the context of the holiday after I relate this seminal moment in my lifelong love of cricket.

Dad and I were in the lobby of the hotel, probably waiting for mum, at the same time as the Yorkshire team were preparing to set off from the hotel to the Sussex CCC ground; I’m guessing this was the morning before the start of the three-day match.

Our coinciding will simply have been happenstance. Dad had no interest whatsoever in any sport, let alone cricket.

But Geoffrey Boycott was a big name in those days – one of very few cricketers who might find himself on the front pages of the paper or on the television news, not just the back pages. Dad knew who he was.

So, as we found ourselves in such close proximity to a big name, dad thought he would introduce me to Geoffrey, along the following lines.

This is Geoffrey Boycott, one of the most famous cricketers in England and indeed the whole world.

Being pretty well trained for a seven-year-old, I looked up at Geoffrey and said words to the effect of:

Very pleased to meet you, Mr Boycott.

Boycott2
“What a polite young man”, said Mr Boycott, patting me on the head: Sigerson, CC BY-SA 3.0

Geoffrey responded well to these polite enquiries. I’m told that this is not always the Geoffrey way, so he must have been in a decent mood and I guess we came across as suitably deferential, fellow hotel guests.

What a polite young man.

Geoffrey patted me on the head. He might even have added

I do like polite young men.

He then explained the teams presence to me and my dad, half-introducing us to some of the other players. For reasons I cannot explain, Phil Sharpe, Geoff Cope and Chris Old’s names stuck in my head for ever. Perhaps it is to do with the minimal number of syllables to those names.

From that holiday onwards, for many years, I thought of Yorkshire as my team. After all, I knew them. I’d met them. They were my friends.

Is that Yorkshire yon?

Here is a link to the scorecard from the match Yorkshire played while staying in that Grand Hotel with us. It did not go well for Geoffrey, who had to retire hurt on 3, just a few minutes into the match. Neither did the match go well for Yorkshire.

My family took that unusually short and proximate break, because I had my adenoids and tonsils removed a couple of weeks earlier, so mum and dad felt that a short break (sea air, ice cream, that sort of thing) not too far from home was the safest option and might aid my convalescence.

There is a short home movie from that holiday – not one of dad’s best:

A few transparencies too – below is a link to the highlights of that, which includes some pictures of me in school uniform when we got home and possibly my earliest efforts with the camera – a couple of pictures of dad:

1969 Brighton Highlights (1)

Mum and dad clearly put a lot of effort into trying to keep me amused – frankly that holiday must have been deadly dull for them.

But I met the Yorkshire cricket team on that short Brighton break and my love of all things cricket was surely sparked there.