Hilary writes…
On the resumption of Bushmen Cricket As supporters, we can’t be with you, but: Hip, hip, hip, hooray: cricket’s up today, We’re back on the field of play, Don’t dream of tea, That cannot be, But here’s to a lovely day. Newdigate we love and hate, Win (or lose), it’s a special date For years before: It’s Bushmen lore, But the match is always a fête. We’ll do our research, and stats will win or shame, Whether they tell of fast or spin, and no chance of blame, Newdigate is in our hearts, Even those of the aged farts, Let […]
Read moreOn tour with the Bushmen Cricket Club
Back in 1998, Michael Kaye reported from Kerala for the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent. I think it’s worth republishing! The Bushmen Cricket Club has been in existence at Bush House since 1943. The Club prides itself on its eccentricity and on ever more exotic foreign tours. Since they started in the early 1970s the tours have moved from Munich in Germany to Monaco, from Milan in Italy to Oporto in Portugal. But at the beginning of this year the Bushmen excelled themselves with a cricket tour of the southern Indian state of Kerala. Michael Kaye was on the tour. […]
Read moreFernhurst, as recalled by Richard Heller
Thanks for the memories: Fernhurst by Richard Heller at Rubato Towers From my crazed diary of lockdown life at my residence, Rubato Towers, London SE1, shared with a fraudulent cockroach, a mouse with literary aspirations and a bridge-playing goldfish, and blighted by sex-crazed foxes. It’s all but midsummer. There are no cricket matches being played in England, but Premier League football is restored (a product of science and common sense or money and supposed votes?) So too is Royal Ascot. Have they told the horses to observe social distancing? Any selections of mine have always done this without being asked, […]
Read moreGreat Bushmen Cricket Matches
The first of a new series of pieces recalling the joy we used to have every summer weekend. Lyndon Jones recalls playing against the V&A at Stonor Park: I’ve played this fixture, on a fine ground looking towards the magnificent grounds of Stonor Park, only once. As so often in life, something apparently straightforward, like a game of cricket, presented substantial ideological challenges. I’m a socialist; so I didn’t feel entirely comfortable visiting the most secure Tory seat in the country: dripping with affluence and assurance, and radiating luxuriant home counties charm, it really is a world away and apart […]
Read moreJOHN HAMER: 1937 – 2019
A Eulogy by Clyde Jeavons (delivered at Golders Green Crematorium, 25th September 2019) John was a close, constant and enduring friend of mine for more than 50 years – indeed, without question, he was my oldest and best friend. We met in the mid-1960s when, as the neophyte Chief Sub-editor of the then radical women’s magazine, SHE, I was asked also to write the Book Reviews. John was the publicity rep. for the publishers W H Allen, and he promptly introduced me to the concept of the business lunch, with the aim of persuading me to mention a […]
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