7 JUNE 2003, Page 71

A week to remember

MIChAEL HENDERSON

Is there anywhere more beautiful in May than England? And can anybody recall a more glorious week than the one we have just enjoyed? The answer to the first question is: of course not. •Those who wobble a bit over the second are lucky souls indeed, for my own week, which took in Sussex and Derbyshire, provided nothing less than a glimpse of paradise.

Sussex brought a blissful evening in the garden of the Cricketers at Berwick, the sort of rural pub that exists in reality and not just in the bucolic fantasies of a man entering middle age. It also brought an extraordinary evening at Glyndebourne, where they are doing their first Wagner, and what a first! Ignore Michael Tanner's mean-spirited review, and bear in mind what Michael Kennedy wrote of this Tristan und Isolde: 'One of a handful of indisputably and satisfyingly great opera evenings in my life.'

There are nights when you don't want to drive away from Glyndebourne. You would rather sleep in the woods with the pixies to retain something of the magic of that marvellous place, where nature and art come together under an English heaven, This was one of them. If any tickets are returned for the remaining performances, then get cracking because Kennedy, as ever, is spot-on. This is one show that everybody interested in music-drama should see.

Derbyshire looked more wonderful still. It is an overlooked place, and let's hope it remains overlooked, The last thing this fine county needs is to be discovered by the riff-raff who turn Umbria into an extension of Chelsea. Incidentally, isn't it a hoot to see how the Mariellas of metropolitan life, who wouldn't touch 'the provinces' with a bargepole, suddenly take a different view of provincial life when they go abroad? Olive oil and ciabatta, and the muck that Italians call wine? Leave a couple of cheese cobs on the bar, me duck, and then help me sink a gallon of Marston's Pedigree. That's living, all right.

There was Pedigree in the Red Lion at Hognaston, another superb country pub, and there was cricket down the road. in Derby. More than that, there was a cricketer, one of the finest to have played the game. Graeme Hick made the 122nd century of his career as Worcestershire won easily, and he is firmly on course for 150. How odd, and sad, that this most prolific of modern batsmen scored only five of them for England.

So much was expected of Hick when he qualified to play for England 12 years ago. Perhaps those early years, when he caned county bowlers across every meadow of the kingdom, helped to corrupt him. He was never tested by the finest attacks, and when he did face them and was found wanting, he lacked the means to address the problem.

Hick was, and remains, a gentle and decent man. He has probably never done a dastardly thing in his life, and he was always popular with his England teammates, who regarded his talent with something approaching awe. But he never dominated the international game as they — and he — hoped.

To the bowlers of England, however, he continues to present a formidable sight. He has not mislaid his powerful strokeplay or his appetite for the game, and he will break a few more records before they take his bat away. Good for him. He has known enough suffering in his career. He deserves to enjoy the good days.