By Clayton Goodwin
Lord’s – Thursday 21 June 1961
It was my first Test match day as a Hayter’s press messenger. England v Australia with the Ashes at stake. The morning was sunny and hot. Freddie Garside, the office manager, met me outside the Grace Gates and escorted me to the press-box at the top of several flights of stone steps at the back of the Warner Stand. Until then I had only ever met one well-known cricketer. That was Bill Bowes at a county match just the previous week and now he described the scene which greeted my eyes today as “one to delight the eye and the heart of every cricket enthusiast. Every seat had been sold”. *(1)
The door of the press-box opened onto a gallery of the best-known names in cricket print journalism and radio commentary, as well as a good number of retired stars of the previous generation of players – plus Scobie Breasley, the leading jockey of the age. It seemed that I was the only one who wasn’t a “name”. What on earth was I doing there?
Almost immediately necks craned forwards to see as Peter Burge dropped a sitter at gully from Geoff Pullar. The match was on in earnest and I had work to do …. At one whole guinea a day.
“You can’t stand around blocking the gangway” – Freddie bustled me towards an empty seat in the back row. “You’ll have to move if any important person wants it”.
Hassett included me in some of his side-quips
I found myself seated between Jack Fingleton and Lindsay Hassett, and next to him was Len Hutton. Eight years earlier, then still at primary school, I had stood on my father’s sandwich-box at the Oval to get a better view over the heads of spectators as these two men led their countries in a memorable battle for the Ashes. Now this same Hassett was including me in some of his humorous side-quips to his colleagues. And it didn’t end there.
By the end of that first day I had phoned copy (with some welcome bonus remuneration) for Godfrey Evans, Denis Compton and for a quiet man, almost unnoticed, who announced himself modestly as “My name’s Ray Lindwall” … as if I hadn’t recognised him.
The following morning, having been given the keys to open the phone-room, I discovered that I wasn’t the first arrival. Keith Miller was there already – no doubt, having come direct from an all-night party. He chatted amiably and asked to see the college books I was carrying for study (BA Hindi) in the “quieter moments”. Exactly a year earlier, being a mere lad, I had been excluded from the village team’s fast bowlers’ discussion of how they imagined Lindwall and Miller had got the ball to move. Now I was phoning copy for the one and musing about Sanskrit with the other. For a country boy from Stony Corner my life was beginning to move in a very peculiar way.
Meeting Frank Worrell changed my life
It moved even more on the Saturday when I had to attend on Frank Worrell. At the time he was probably the best-known sportsman in the Commonwealth – coming off the Tied Test series in Australia that winter – but treated me, a mere unknown, with humanity and interest rather than condescension. When I contacted the West Indian Gazette to ask about how I could find more information on this great man, his team and the islands they came from, the editor, the iconic Claudia Jones, surprisingly asked me to contribute a few pieces to her newspaper. She liked what I sent to her, and so did the Gleaner, which led me to a career of over 60 years in the Caribbean media, having a Jamaican wife (now 59 years married), and the general erroneous assumption that I am West Indian.
Not everything in the press-box was sweetness and light, however. There were some formidable characters. A good number of the senior reporters were former commissioned officers in the armed forces who had commanded men on the parade-ground, and, sometimes, in action. They had become used to be being obeyed – and expected it now. One august figure – whom I shall come to later – didn’t know whether to be horrified or amused that I had irreverently worn a CND lapel-badge in the Lord’s press-box of all places.
The most frightening colleague to a young man, and many others, was the legendary acerbic E.M. Wellings of the London Evening News. Evelyn Maitland – how dare he pre-appropriate the name of my future beloved grand-daughter! Not that I suffered directly from his verbal barbs. It was enough just to be present when it happened to others. Cedric Venables, whose bearing matched his name, took loud exception to mispronunciation in my copy-phoning, making all present aware in stentorian tones that here was a peasant who couldn’t say “debacle” or “Crichton” properly.
Finding Swanton’s secretary’s hand-bag
Coming from Kent, I was asked frequently if I had any dealings with E.W. “Jim” Swanton who was regarded as being something of a patron saint in the county (and probably by himself as well). Apart from the matter of the lapel-badge my relations with him were generally good. One evening after play was over, while I was clearing up the papers, he phoned to say his secretary Daphne Surfleet had left her hand-bag behind – please could I find it and take it to the secretary’s office. I did as he requested. Most of the rooms were closed, but seeing a door that was ajar, I walked in … straight into a meeting chaired by Commander Babb (“monarch of all he surveyed” at the Oval). He gave me a right bawling out for presumed trespass and accused me of having stolen the handbag.
“Did he?” said Swanton when I told him the next morning and stormed out to settle matters with the intrepid commander. From his tone of voice – “Look here (he-ah)” you could imagine him saying – and purposeful manner, I even began to feel sorry for Babb. After an absence from the press-box of a few years, the next time I saw Miss Daphne Surfleet she had metamorphosed into Mrs Daphne Benaud, and “Jim” was still a patron saint.
Much of my time was spent with people associated at some time or other with Hayter’s – which included a good number of the home-grown intake. When I started to write my own copy, the report had to be submitted first for approval to the gentle, charming and well-liked, Bryon Butler. While still making stringent editorial changes, he could make my scrappiest etching seem like purple prose. Ron Roberts, like Butler, from the West Country had considerable influence on my early style. The last time I saw him he was on the upward escalator at the Oval underground station while I was on the way down. As he passed me Ron took a carnation from his own button-hole, lent over, and affixed it to mine. Shortly afterwards I learned from a radio news report about his premature passing.
The Lord’s “back row”
The Lord’s “back row” contained a miscellany of colonials, independents and just about anybody who didn’t fit in elsewhere. I spent many pleasant hours with such colleagues as Murray Hedgcock, Brian Bassano, Qamar Ahmed, David Lemmon, Kim Baloch, Andy Jalil, David Foot (if he was really “back row”) …. and so many more. As Bassano and myself were once returning in a crowded train from a match at Chelmsford he was holding forth, naturally, in his native South African accent.
“Hey, mister, where do you come from?” asked one young man.
“East London” Brian replied in all honesty.
“Bloody hell, you don’t sound like a blooming Cockney” the youth retorted.
David Frith had a greater influence on the back row than he, himself, may have realised. Although we were poles apart politically, I struck a rapport with David – we are both “outsiders” – and found him to be particularly helpful to newcomers, or those, like myself, coming back after an absence. Then, I would say that as he gave me my main breakout from the specialised Caribbean media niche, wouldn’t I? (smile). Writers of West Indian heritage have told me that, in spite of an expectation to the contrary, Frith had been more genuinely helpful in getting them to feel “at home” than many others of a more avowed liberal persuasion.
The West Indian contingent included Tony Cozier, the doyen of Caribbean cricket coverage, when he wasn’t in the broadcasting studio, Tony Becca, the under-rated Joseph “Reds” Perreira, and Professor John Figueroa. I worked particularly closely with Becca as he represented the Kingston office of the Gleaner, and was group sports editor, and myself the London branch of the same publication. (Physically he could also pass more plausibly as my wife’s brother than any of her actual siblings). Polymath Professor Figueroa, with his distinctive beard, glasses and bald head, was often not taken seriously enough by administrative and hospitality staff unaware of his many achievements. When a symposium was held in his honour at the Institute of Education with just two representatives from each of his areas of experience and expertise the fair-sized room was filled to capacity. *(2)
Cricketers who shaped my childhood
The privilege of speaking, or even working, with cricketers whose deeds had shaped my childhood has been a special privilege. I was particularly proud to be a press-box colleague of Allan Rae, who – at a charity game in 1948 (Mayor of Gravesend XI’s v Kent) – was the first batsman I saw take strike in any important fixture. Incidentally, he was also the first black person on whom I ever set eyes. Later I shared a few words with Jackie McGlew, the South African whose electrifying fielding lit up a rain-sodden day at Canterbury in 1951(the first tourists’ game I attended). Others, such as Alan Revill, had been a staple diet of county cricket in the regular Kent-Derbyshire encounters in my home- town, Gravesend.
As for the county ground press facilities many of which seemed to be the fief of one established local reporter, such as Dudley Moore at Kent …. but here I see the editor’s finger wagging at me …. I mustn’t be caught exceeding my time … though there is one more memory of when I had those media facilities entirely to myself. It was when the Netherlands took on – and beat – the mighty West Indians at Haarlem in 1991.
Although several UK-journalists had appeared to accept the invitation to attend, I was the only one who actually turned up. There was a mountain of guests’ food and drink for me to consume as I batted out a day of questions (c 95% of which were about Viv Richards). From the hotel newspapers the next morning I found myself quoted at length in fluent Dutch – a language I don’t speak! For the rest of the decade I was regarded as being somewhat of an authority on Dutch cricket. It’s a pity the national Elftal hasn’t maintained the promise of those years.
“Did you know him? He used to be —–“
Not so long ago I saw an elderly man sitting alone in a corner of the Lord’s press-box. He was a friend and until recently one of the most popular of our members. As I walked towards him a younger man nudged me and said: “Did you know him? He used to be —–“.
Used to be! For goodness sake, he still was that same man! And, I am determined, it won’t happen to me.
Since Covid I have not applied for accreditation at Lord’s or any of the other major venues, though I have been seen occasionally at some suburban or provincial grounds.
For myself, as well as for others of my generation, Francis Thompson’s poem has become much more real than being just a handy quote for an essay.
For the field is – indeed – 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 fro,
To and fro: –
O my Swanton and my Wellings long ago!
*(1) “Aussies and Ashes” Bill Bowes, 1961 *(2) Murray Hedgcock and myself represented cricket reporting