But somewhat out of the blue, a few weeks ago, Teresa got in touch to say that she would be making a rare visit to London and the timings worked for her to visit Noddyland for tea.
How very civilised.
Janie went to work immediately on the matter of home baked cakes…
…she called Cafe 11 up the road and ordered a huge chunk of lemon cake and a huge chunk of pistachio cake.
Top method for ensuring that you offer the highest quality of baked cakes.
It was really lovely to see Teresa again, after all these years. There was a fair bit of catching up to do on where life had taken us all, but we were soon able to move on to trying to put the world to rights:
One afternoon wasn’t quite enough to solve all of the world’s problems
The afternoon whizzed by, then Teresa went off to have an early evening meet up with her son John. As Teresa said in her note this morning, which Janie and I echo:
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.
My memories from these particular evenings are fairly impressionistic.
We had good turnout from the Z/Yen crowd, despite the fact that none of us were really into ten-pin bowling. The Children’s Society (TCS) turnout was not as good, although Charles Bartlett and Tony Duggan were into ten-pin bowling.
I think one of these evenings must have been the first time I met Dot Bartlett. Probably the second one when Janie also came along.
Despite Charles’s constant jokes about Romford being a gangsta’s paradise, the Romford bowling alleys we attended seemed remarkably peaceful and friendly. Perhaps Charles made it known to the Romford underworld that he was being visited by people he considered to be family and that, therefore, “this ain’t your night”. Ever “Charley the Gent Malloy”, is Chas.
I say alleys rather than alley, as I think we went to a different place each time. Perhaps the place known 25 years later as Namco Funscape the first time, then a place now known as Rollerball the second time.
I remember Elisabeth Mainelli doing exceptionally well, especially on that first occasion, having said that she had never so much as seen a ten-pin bowling alley before.
Charles insisted on having Teresa Bestard (who worked for Z/Yen but was doing a lot of work with TCS at that time) on his team. I don’t think this was a tactical move in the matter of improving the standard of his team, but it was an attempt to even up the sides, at least numbers-wise.
Naturally TCS prevailed the first time regardless of the intricacies of team selection and numbers.
In kicking off the arrangements for the second event, I wrote:
I promised to come up with some Monday dates for bowling. Janie is currently keeping Monday 8 February and Monday 15 February evenings free. If you recall, we plugged for Monday evening to enable Dean Burnell to attend.
The Z/Yen team been training hard for many weeks now. I’m not sure whether the management skills training will help the bowling – we’ll find out.
Chas replied:
Both dates are good for me although the second date (15 Feb) probably best as I am on leave to whole week prior to the 8th Feb and it would be helpful that I am around.
How many do you anticipate from Z/Yen for the ritual slaughter?
regards
Charles.
It might or might not have been ritual slaughter. I seem to recall Z/Yen doing a bit better second time around. But my main memory of the event was Janie trying to put Chas off while he was bowling, by wandering down the side of the lane, within his peripheral view, staring like an avid fan at Chas preparing his shot.
Chas got really discombobulated by this trick, claiming a complete inability to concentrate, keep a straight face and/or complete his bowl.
I think Chas might be over it by now, 25 years later. I have a feeling it didn’t stop TCS from winning again.
Chas was over it by 12 September 2005, when we saw England regain The Ashes at The Oval
I am writing this memory piece on 4 December 2019, having just learnt that the great fast bowler and latterly cricket pundit, Bob Willis, has died today.
For those who cannot be bothered to click through, Graham and I really did meet Bob that day in 1977, down in the tube station, an hour or so after stumps, as we were all heading to different households in Streatham, in his case to visit friends on the test match rest day.
I doubt very much whether Bob recognised me 20 years later on our second encounter; on this occasion in the Albertine Wine Bar in Shepherd’s Bush.
Teresa Bestard was working with me on several projects with Broadcasting Support Services, who at that time were based in Shepherd’s Bush. I had arranged to meet Teresa and David Highton to go through stuff late afternoon/early evening and we agreed we’d have a drink after work together. Teresa chose Albertine because she wanted to celebrity spot.
The bar was not so crowded when we got there and Teresa was a little disappointed not to recognise any celebrities in the bar.
The only person I recognised, on the far side of the bar, was Bob Willis. He was with two other people; one turned out to be the cricket journalist Michael Henderson, the other a mustachioed Aussie, who looked like a superannuated version of Merv Hughes but who was in fact a wine producer.
I told Teresa that a former great England cricketer was in the bar, which was celebrity enough for me. It was celebrity enough for David Highton too, who is/was a keen follower of cricket and indeed was a decent player in his own right when he turned out for the charity matches.
Teresa let it be known that former cricketers did not meet her stringent criteria for celebrity.
David didn’t hang around for very long.
Teresa asked me a bit more about Bob Willis. In the absence of any celebrities who met her stringent criteria, she suddenly promoted Bob to the “worth asking about” level.
I told her a little and suggested that she approach Bob and chat with him.
Teresa was not at all keen on that idea…
…until she progressed to a second glass of wine…
…when she asked again about this cricket business and that cricketer and I suggested that she approach Bob Willis with a greeting along the lines of…
…aren’t you Bob Willis, the great fast bowler and former England cricket captain…
…and take it from there.
So imagine the scene. Teresa Bestard, a pint-sized young woman with a big smile and a heavy Catalan accent, wanders to the other side of the bar, looks up to the relative giant, Bob Willis, presumably saying the above short speech.
I couldn’t hear from my distance, but I did see the astonished expression on Bob Willis’s face and gales of laughter from the group.
Teresa was then chatting with them for a short while, before Michael Henderson came over to me.
You set that up, didn’t you?…
..said Henderson…
…that was really funny. Is she your girlfriend?
No, I said, Teresa’s a work colleague.
Well, anyway, she’s perfectly safe with those two.
Henderson and I chatted a while, which is how I found out, amongst other things, that “Merv Senior” was a wine producer.
Soon enough, Bob, “Merv Senior” and Teresa came over to our table – I think the Bob Willis party had been on the verge of leaving when Teresa intervened with them, so all three of them made to leave.
Is this your girlfriend?…
…Bob Willis asked me, pointing to Teresa.
Oh no, blushed Teresa, you should meet his girlfriend Janie, she’s lovely!
Bob Willis turned to me, saluted me and said…
…mon capitaine…
…before all three of Bob’s party left us, with warm farewells.
