Low life
Bowled over
Jeffrey Bernard
L ast Sunday there was a cricket match to celebrate the centenary of the Chelsea Arts Club. It was a glorious day and the game was played on a lovely and well main- tained ground at St Leonard's Terrace between the King's Road and the Royal Hospital. A couple of old pros turned up, Butcher of Surrey and Clive Radley of Middlesex and England, but there was some sparkling batting from nearly every- one. They asked me to do a spell of umpir- ing with Peter O'Toole but he didn't turn up. More's the pity.
At one point, when I was umpiring at square leg, Dudley, the club secretary, sent someone out with a large vodka and ice for me. That was the act of a Christian and a gentleman. After that there was a hiccup. During a lull in the game and waiting for a new batsman to come in I sat down on the grass and couldn't get up again.
Such is the weakness of my thighs these days that I need something to pull myself up with or the arms of a chair to push down on. A couple of fielders pulled me to my feet and walked me to the pavilion. The humiliating incident was misinterpreted, of course. The next day the Evening Stan- dard's Londoner's Diary said that I had been overcome by the sun and I suppose many spectators assumed that I was drunk, which was unpleasantly far from the truth. I did manage a couple of drinks, though, in the Young's brewery marquee with Gra- ham Lord of the Sunday Erpress and that was a nice tea break, so to speak.
The man who interviewed me for the Evening Standard asked me what it was about cricket that makes it my favourite game. I was lost for words and told him
`Have you got any?' that it isn't a game but a way of life and I couldn't even explain that statement. My father, who loathed cricket, called it `organised loafing', but he obviously couldn't see or grasp the subtleties of it. The interviewer also asked me did I ever fantasise about cricket. Unceasingly. The times I have square-cut Dennis Lillee for boundaries and knocked Don Bradman's middle stump out of the ground are count- less. What depresses me is to have become an umpire thanks to ill health.
One of the memories I most cherish was an occasion playing for art critic David Sylvester's team. I had bowled about seven overs and he took me off saying that I was spoiling the game which he wanted to last until the pubs opened. I couldn't go wrong that day and even got off with the scorer's daughter in the evening. Happy summer days and daze. As a schoolboy I had the honour and privilege of being coached by the great Maurice Tate on a few occasions and I shall be wearing the whites my sec- ond wife didn't give away to Oxfam in the hope of an emergency telephone call from Graham Gooch at the Oval to replace someone or other.
But it is good to be living near the Chelsea Arts Club again. From West Hampstead it was £9 each way in a taxi (the legs can't cope with public transport any more), which made a drink cost £20, assuming one went there for 'just the one'. So I am resigned to have been relegated to being an umpire now. But it does feel hor- ribly like Goodbye Mr Chips. If The Specta- tor plays the Coach and Horses soon I shall sit that one out. And today sees the return of that playboy and cricket expert, Norman Salon, who thinks that Test matches are played at Wembley. God save our souls.
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