Notebook
I found myself in hospital the other day — a patient for the first time in twenty-five years. Most of what I have to report of my stay consists of the re-assertion of the truth of heart-warming clichés. All the nurses in the National Heart Hospital were unimaginably delightful and considerate. If I have a particularly warm memory of one West Indian lady, it is because of her willingness to serve sleepless me tea at three o'clock in the morning. I was surprised to find how quickly hospital camaraderie took hold of me: for the first few days I was still gossiping to my wife about the outside world; thereafter, she had to listen to a steady diet of the trivial, but suddenly important, concerns of the unwell. I came in both panicky and depressed. That I cheered up no end within a day was due entirely to two of my really seriously ill comrades. Neither man could expect a very long life; neither, indeed, could be cured. Together, however, they made it their business to keep other peckers up. From their beds poured steady streams of jovial abuse, sporting gossip and racy commentary: it was impossible to remain low in their company. I was frightened only once. It was midmorning, and I was dozily watching the fourth Test on television. The whole place was rent by an ear-splitting mechanical shriek. Inquiry revealed that it was the cardiac arrest alarm. The patient did not survive.
One of the most delightful presents I got while in hospital was my colleague Benny Green's new book, The Cricket Addict's Archive (Elm Tree Books, f5.50). I finished it in one late night stand, and then read it through again. No sport has attracted so much good writing as cricket, and nearly every one of Benny's selections is representative of the best. There is, for example, Jack Fingleton's masterly essays on Douglas Jardine, Don Bradman, Harold Larwood and the bodyline controversy. His • description of Jardine in action (socially as well as on the field) is enough to chill the blood: no colder master of himself can ever have lived. By contrast, and without a single sentimental note, Fingleton reports with consummate insight on how badly fortune and the game treated Harold Larwood living, when the Australian reporter visited him, in the back of his little Blackpool shop, utterly divorced, then, from cricket — this, the man who cowed Bradman —and keen to spend at the pub the pound Sir Pelham Warner had given him years before for bowling Fingleton out quickly. I am happy to be able to claim, finally, that I have actually made a contribution to this splended anthology. Some years ago I gave Benny a present of Lord Harris's masterpiece, A Few Short Runs. From it he has taken my favourite Harris observation. The great man was, at the time, Governor of Bombay. He spent a good deal of time playing cricket, and teaching the natives to do likewise. He was enraged by consequent criticism in 'the native press', and commented, 'Whereas I might have been lying on a sofa, smoking cigarettes, and reading French novels; and because they would not have known what I was doing I should have been free from condemnation.'
One of the pleasures of hospital was being able to watch — uninterrupted save by a blood pressure check every two hours — the whole of the fourth Test. My stay also encompassed the first Match of the Day in the new football season, and the appointment of Ron Greenwood as England's new team manager. Every man holding that job is, of course, bedevilled by lack of cooperation from club managers in the Football League; and the managers of the two Irish international teams, and of Wales and Scotland, have been even more so. What a contrast is presented by cricket. Middlesex deprived for a large part of this year of the services of Brearley, Kent of Knott, and Sussex of Greig — and yet every county is proud to see its stars in the national team, not selfishly hugging them to themselves and their own ambitions.
My convalescence has, however, brought me back into the strife and conflict of the real world with a bang. I went to a garden party given, at their delightful home in Kent, by Arthur (of the Institute of Economic Affairs) and Marjorie Seldon, and there met George Ward of Grunwick. The Scarman report had already appeared, and my sympathies were more strongly than ever before engaged on Ward's side. Never, surely, has a more ludicrously unbalanced assessment of a controversial — if quite simple — affair issued from a committee presided over by a learned judge: I hope it will at any rate ensure the scotching of those hints to the effect that Scarman would be a suitable replacement for the great Lord Denning. In the report the weight of the evidence presented is entirely to the effect that the so-called strikers and the union backing them were guilty of the grossest intimidation and malpractice, while the company's faults were both minor and few. Yet, practically the entire burden of penalty falls on the company and on Ward, who• is enjoined by it either to re-employ or to compensate wreckers. In any event I am delighted to report that he seems remarkably unfussed by it all, and impressed me not only with his capacity and charm, but with his courage. He has few steadfast friends left, but none of them are likely to be discouraged by the cowardice of sections of the media. For example, the National Association for Freedom, engaged again in a sterling battle for rights at Grunwick, had had its entirely legal and unprovocative advertisements refused by two newspapers which prate often about freedom of expression, for fear they might excite the printing workers.
All in all, I cannot say that August was a good month for me. At its beginning .I fell ill. At its end my great bulldog, Moran, died suddenly, from heart disease, virtually endemic in the breed at his advanced age. I admit not only to a practically obsessive love of dogs, but to a certain amount of schizophrenia in their regard. I would be happy with a mongrel, but have a particular affection for individual breeds, and would hate to see them vanish into a doggy flux. On the other hand, inbreeding and the requirements of the Kennel Club have undoubtedly damaged the strain and imperilled the longevity of many breeds — perhaps most notably the bulldog. I am always, therefore, delighted to hear either of accidental mutations or deliberately created new strains. I have just learned, for example, of the Queensland Blueheeler, a cattledog from that great state of the Australian Commonwealth. The Blueheeler, I understand, is a small dog, and enforces his will on cattle herds by nipping their heels (hence the name). I am told he is a delightful companion, and excellent with children but that, in following adults, he is a little inclined to give them the same treatment as he does cows. I am not sure about him, but the thought of a blue dog does encourage certain fantasies of distinction.
Patrick Cosgrave
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