Run-stealers flickering to and fro
as life's shadows fall ii,rarely watch first-class cricket now, so it was a treat to go to Lord's for the one-day match between England and the West Indies. I owe it to the generosity of Sandals, a firm which runs the best resorts in places like Antigua, Jamaica and the Bahamas. They greeted me with exquisite courtesy and served a delicious lunch after I had seen the tall, gangling Flintoff whack some amazing fours and sixes. Lord's stirred ancient memories, of when my father first took me to matches in the Thirties and I watched the Don score an effortless century. Thus did the elderly Francis Thompson sit in the Tavern, thinking about the historic match played between Grace's all-conquering Gloucestershire and Thompson's own team, Lancashire. He was 18 at the time and his heroes were 'Stonewall' Barlow and the hard-hitting Hornby, known as 'the Monkey', who together saved the match. It was then that he set down five of the most moving lines I know:
For the field is full of shades as I near the shadowy coast, And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost, And I look through my tears on a soundless clapping host, As the run-stealers flicker to and fm, To and fro: —
0 my Hornhy and my Barlow long ago!
My own tears were not far away when I thought of going to Old Trafford, aged nine, to see the Roses match in (I suppose) 1938 and first set eyes on my young hero, Len Hutton, soon to score 364 against the Australians at the Oval. Those grim contests between Lancashire and Yorkshire were deadly serious affairs. What I find hard to take about this one-day cricket is not so much that the players wear red and blue track-suits instead of elegant white flannels, or that the ball is white instead of polished red leather, or the stumps black, not varnished cream, but the noise which goes on all the time. The rule in my youth was that no one spoke a word while the ball was in play so that players and spectators alike could concentrate totally on the game. If anyone had chattered during play in a Roses match he would have been frogmarched out of the ground. Things were strict then. I finally met my hero, by then Sir Len, in 1979 when I took the chair at a Foyles lunch and he was one of the guests of honour. To my amazement, he came up to me afterwards, declared himself a fan of my books, and asked for my autograph. So we exchanged signatures, and he told me about the old days. When, still a teenager, he first entered the sanctum of the players' dressing room at Headingley, the senior professional, Herbert Sutcliffe, told him, 'That's thy locker, lad. Put thy togs in there. And remember, speak when th'art spoken to and not before!'
I can't say I like what Lord's has become. It is true the scoreboards give you a mass of fascinating information, and what was to be found only in Wisden a year later is now instantly available. But I don't relish the ubiquitous advertising, not least on the electronic board which has replaced the sightscreen at the Nursery End. The stumps themselves proclaim NatWest. The numbers on the players' backs make them look like footballers. The crowd, in addition to being disgustingly noisy, applauded in the wrong places and missed the finer points. I can't see great craftsmen like Hedley Verity or old Grimmett being happy in the atmosphere, though no doubt that arch-celeb Denis Compton, whose glorious summer of 1947 has never been equalled, would revel in it. I used to see him in the bar at El Vino when he was advertising Brylcreem and taking a noggin (or two, or three) with the sports editors.
I contrast the brashness of present-day Lord's with the majestic calm of Wormsley, where I watched a day's amateur cricket last month on the beautiful ground created by the late Paul Getty. If Lord's, as it proclaims pushily on its electronic screens, is the home of cricket, then this enchanting nest in the Chilterns is, perhaps, its spiritual home. Here is all the charm lost in the frenzied world of professional sport: white flannels, striped blazers from ancient clubs, I Zingari ties, veterans dozing in deckchairs, a respectful silence as the bowler runs up to the wicket, followed by exclamations of 'I say!', Well played, sir!' and 'Shot!' I loved the bright pink caps of the visiting team and am determined to possess one. Or is that had form? I found myself sitting next to John Biffen and we reminisced about Larwood and Voce, Ken Fames, Lindwall and other great pacemen. There, too, was that laudator of glory days Hugh Massingberd, a neighbour of mine in W2, whom I often see setting out for Lord's on a sunny day but who is really in his element on club occasions when the pressure is off and the straw hats on.
The Getty ground must be among the prettiest in the world, with superb turf on which unlimited money has been spent and which, as it is used only a dozen times a year, is always in perfect condition. On the far side is a life-size bronze, The Batsman', by the famous Highland sculptor Gerald Laing (who also did a bust of me!). It is one of an edition of two, the other being at Lord's. What makes the ground so noble is the background of hanging woods, climbing up the hills which form the walls of a basin — glorious and ancient trees of rich variety and rare colour. Flying above them are the red kites which Paul Getty enticed back to their historic breeding-grounds in the Chilterns. The whole setting is so remarkable that I want to paint it, but my repeated efforts have all ended in failure. I can do the woods and sky, but to fit the ground in beneath them is beyond my limited skill. The truth is, painting a cricket scene is a difficult job, for the flat extent of the pitch, foreground and middle ground all in one, raises almost insuperable problems of perspective. Then you have to put in a dozen or so white figures, all of equal size — no easy matter in watercolour. This explains why so few professional painters have ever tackled cricket. Some years ago I found an exception: a Thirties view of the Oval, perhaps done when Hutton made his record score, which brought out the immensity of the ground and its tweedy-green colour, so hard to reproduce. The Black Prince, for whom the Kennington estate where the Oval is sited was created by his fond father Edward III, would have been proud to own it. So was I, but I gave it to Paul Getty to hang in his library of rare books. I thought: here is a man who is always giving things and rarely gets anything in return, because people think he has got it all. He was delighted to have it: may God rest his generous soul. There is a spirit to cricket which brings out the best in English people, as poor, hapless but golden-tongued Francis Thompson knew:
0 love, if thou and I could but Conspire Against this Pitch of life, so false with Mire. Would we not Doctor it afresh, and then Roll it out smoother to the Bat's Desire!
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