11. Too Exciting!

We made the big decision a few weeks ago to return to the UK, permanently. We will probably be returning in July but it rather depends upon whether we can sell our cottage.

If we do manage to sell, it means that I have to post my Cayman experiences before we leave.  It would seem a little strange to sit in the cold and gloom of Winchmore Hill, North London and write about incidents that took place on a tropical island.

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In September 2004, Grand Cayman was hit with the full force of Hurricane Ivan and it was devastated.  Since then, nothing of interest has occurred other than the arrival of Mr and Mrs Wilton or, Mr and Mrs Dawes as most people here think we are. 

What happened when I arrived at the school I help out at one morning last December was quite interesting.  I couldn’t get in to park my car.  Police, paramedics and a film crew from the news station, plus about thirty onlookers surrounded the building.

There was a man up on the roof.  He was screaming obscenities at the police and threatening to jump.

The news reporter got hold of a police loud hailer and called up to the man.  She asked him, very nicely and politely, I thought, if he would stop using the ‘f’ word while screaming at the police negotiator.  She explained to him in calm, measured tones, that the news went out at 6:00 pm and there would certainly be children watching.  She went on to tell him that unless something quite extraordinary happened, like someone is caught with more than the daily quota of conch, this would definitely be the lead story.

The “news” programme that we have here is a bit of a misnomer.  It is aired at 6:00 pm Monday to Friday.  There is no news programme at the weekends or on public holidays because of course, nothing ever happens then.  The BBC could learn from this, save a fortune and cut licence fees.  Rarely is anything that happens on that day featured on the same evening’s news. 

Saturday’s football results and film footage from one game will be shown on the following Tuesday.  As filming the entire game is expensive, the cameraman appears to only begin filming when the ball gets into a penalty area.  Consequently, we see many sequences of anticlimactic missed opportunities but rarely a goal.  The best example of this was last season when every goal in a “nine goal thriller” was missed.

The radio news is not a lot better.  “THESE ARE THE STORIES THAT ARE MAKING HEADLINES” is bellowed over the airwaves by the deep, urgent, breathless, tones of an American-accented continuity announcer, on the hour, every hour.  Last Friday I pulled over in the car and stopped to prepare myself for the bombshell story to follow.

“Today is ‘Dressdown Day’ at many Caymanian businesses to raise money for the animal shelter,” said the sweet, melodic voice of the female newsreader.

‘On the hour, every hour’ is not strictly true.  We work on, ‘Island Time’.  On the phone-in show the other morning, the host announced, “It’s eight twenty-three and time to go to the eight o’clock news.”  A couple of months ago there was no radio news at all because the newsreader was ill.

Anyway, back to the man on the roof.  Sadly, the reporter’s polite request had no effect at all on him and he shouted that both she and everyone else should “F” off.  All of us watching were shocked.  Children were arriving and they were asked to go to the adjacent church and wait until they were called.  Some of them were very slow to respond and I hope they didn’t hear any of the very rude things the man was still shouting.

The crowd was growing and was mainly women.  Most of them had brought folding chairs and a parasol or umbrella to keep the direct sun off and they were really making a day of it.  Many were talking into their cell phones telling friends of the unfolding drama and suggesting that they come and join them.  By 9:10 the ‘audience’ had grown to more than 100. 

The harmonised, “Oooos” and “Aaaahs” that followed closely after every obscenity yelled from the roof, sounded too rehearsed to me to be spontaneous but perhaps they were.  A van pulled up and parked on the road and began selling ice cream.  I went over to the TV reporter whom I know as she has the cottage near us and asked her what she knew. 

“Nothing,” she said, “I was given a choice.  It was this, or the start of the lobster season.  I wish I’d chosen the lobsters now.  You always know where you are with a lobster.  This is getting boring.  I wish he’d hurry up and jump.” She looked at her watch.  “I’ve got a hair appointment at ten.  Do you like it like this, or should I have it shorter?”

I was flattered that she valued my opinion and began to tell her that my personal preference was for shorter hair but perhaps the opinion of someone more than thirty years older than her was not likely to be what she needed to hear. 

My wise advice was interrupted by the arrival of a group of American tourists from a cruise ship who had been told that she was with CNN.  Julie, the reporter, said nothing to enlighten them but set about signing autographs on any scrap of paper that came to hand. 

The pastor from the church arrived, full of self-importance, wise saws and modern instances. He immediately tried to take control.  He got hold of the hailer and suggested that we all join him in prayer.

After about five seconds of prayer the guy next to me shouted, “Stop!” and he pointed at the man on the roof.  “He hasn’t got his eyes closed.”

I couldn’t see how this was ever going to be resolved.  It was about 30°C but there was a large air conditioning unit beside him to give him shade so he would never get too hot.  He wasn’t going to come down for water, as he seemed to have several bottles up there with him.  I was getting very hot though and I looked for the headteacher to tell her that I was going home but that if the situation was resolved, she could give me a ring and I’d be back in five minutes. 

I stopped looking for her when I heard the police negotiator calling to the man through the loud hailer.  He was clearly getting impatient and was responding at last to the numerous calls coming from the crowd and the constant chant of, “jump jump jump.” 

The negotiator’s style, technique and approach was novel.  “Well go on then, you moron - jump!”

The crowd cheered.  The man jumped. 

The school is only one storey high and his fall was about 10 feet.  As soon as he hit the ground he got up and tried to run off but he was apprehended immediately.

An interesting start to the day.

10. Cricket, pain and humiliation

The cricket season began here in Cayman three weeks ago and last weekend, I was driving past the Smith Road cricket ground in George Town on my way home.  

I was in no hurry and I stopped to watch a few overs.  Someone was bowling pretty quickly and he hit the batsman full on the foot.  The batsman was obviously in pain and everyone gathered around to see how he was.

It reminded me of a cricket match that I played several years ago that was, without doubt, the least enjoyable of all the 4000+ games of Club Cricket that I calculate I played in the UK before coming to Cayman.  

With each game starting at either 11.30 am or 2.00 pm and finishing at about 7.30 pm and with at least 2 hours drinking and socialising with the opposition after every game, it means that, very roughly, when I played my last game in 2004 at the age of 57,  I had spent about 11% of my waking hours playing in or involved in, cricket matches.

My best playing days were behind me when I played the nightmare match.  On Sundays, I usually played for Finchley's first eleven but one week, the Chairman of the cricket committee asked me if I would captain the 3rd XI in a friendly game on the following Sunday.  

He said that there were four young boys in the side and they needed a mature person to look after them.  Flattered at being called mature, I agreed to do it.

By Sunday, there had been a couple of call-offs and we were not quite as strong as we had been originally and at “meet time” at the club, we only had ten players.  

A first-team player who was playing at home offered the services of his ten-year-old son, James.  He had all his kit with him, as he always did for just such an opportunity.

We had an umpire, Sam and a scorer named Sammy, who was about 15 but hadn’t ever played cricket.   He found the statistics of cricket fascinating though and had learnt to keep score.

So, the might of Finchley Cricket Club 3rd XI set off to play in a park in West London against a side who called themselves ‘Pakistan Eagles’.  We were a convoy of four cars and leading a convoy of cars around London’s North Circular Road on a Sunday afternoon in July when no one knows exactly where they are going, is not easy.

I smoked small cigars in those days and going around a roundabout on to the North Circular Road, I asked Sammy, who was sitting next to me, to pass me a box of matches.  He didn’t but instead, he opened the box, took out a match, lit it and thrust it towards my mouth.  

I was seriously distracted and drove into the curb.  The front tyre exploded with the noise of a million popping paper bags but with great presence of mind, I managed to get the car on to the grass verge.  I got out and surveyed the damage.

The tyre had disintegrated.  Sammy giggled.  I got the jack and set about changing the wheel.  Further down the North Circular, the other three cars had stopped and were causing chaos.  

A police car arrived and the police constable who came over started laughing at my plight and that started Sammy giggling again.

I knew the PC. He opened the bowling for Hornsey, a neighbouring club, and I had scored quite a few runs off his bowling in a league match a few weeks earlier but only after he had hit me on the shoulder with a beamer (high full toss).  He apologised immediately and I accepted it but in my opinion, which I have kept to myself until now, he was too good a bowler for that to have happened accidentally.

The grassy verge was muddy and instead of the front of the car going up, the jack went down into the mud. The PC laughed some more and Sammy’s giggling was getting out of control.

Just when I needed one, I had a brainwave.

“Watch this,” I said.  I went to the pavement carrying a tyre lever and looked for a loose slab that I could lever up and use to rest the jack on - brilliant!  

By the time the spare wheel was on It was 1.50 pm and we had only travelled 100 yards.

We eventually got to the ground at 2.30 and I apologised profusely to the opposition captain who appeared to be about 18 years old.

“I am really sorry we are so late,” I said.  Of course, I lost the toss. 

“OK, we’ll bat,” their captain said, “and is it all right if we play a 40-over game?  My side needs the practice.”  At the end of the first over, they were 18-0 and things were looking ominous.

Their innings seemed to take forever.  We were playing in a park. The nearest impediment to the travelling ball, apart from our fielders (who were hardly an impediment at all), was the park wall which was over 70 yards from the boundary in every direction.  

As they were hitting several boundaries an over, every six-ball-over took at least seven minutes to complete because of the time it took to retrieve the ball.

Their score at tea was 464 – 4.  One of the openers was run out for 211, in the 24th over.  If he had not been so unlucky, he would have probably scored over 400 himself and we would have been "chasing" over 600.  We were told that he had played for Pakistan Under 19 two weeks earlier and scored 80 against Australia Under 19.

As we walked off for tea, Sammy was giggling again.  “Why didn’t you bowl?  That would have been a laugh.”  I said nothing but gave him a look that proved, in case you’ve ever wondered, that looks can’t kill.

I had noticed when we arrived that my spare tyre was losing air and clearly, it either had a leaky valve or a slow puncture.  I decided to go and put some air in it so that I could get home after the game.  

I had intended to open the batting but I didn't and so I told those from 5 to 10 in the order that they would all move down one when I got back. I gave a short motivational and inspirational address that nobody listened to or took any notice of, and then I set off to get air in the tyre.

20 minutes later, I stared at the scoreboard in disbelief. 5-7.  Five runs, seven wickets.  I said nothing but went inside to get ready to bat.  I had just put on my second pad when I heard that another wicket had fallen.  I emerged from the gloom of the pavilion.  

I went out to bat determined to play the innings of my life.  We still had 35 overs and I was going to do it all on my own.  I was to become the stuff of legend.  I would be interviewed by the press. I would be invited on to chat shows.

The wicket had fallen off the last ball of the over and so I was at the non-striker’s end.  I watched, bewildered, as one of our two 12-year-old players (who later played first-class, county cricket and became one of the finest batsmen the club has ever had), played out a maiden.

“What’s going on Sam?” I asked our umpire. “How can we be 8 down?”

“Wait and see,” he said, giving me a look I had never seen before or since.  It was a mixture of pity, concern and amusement.

A lad who appeared to be aged about 20 ran in to bowl at me. I was told later he was 17.  He was only a little more than medium height.

The first ball he bowled at me was the quickest I ever received in my 45-year club-cricket career.  

When I was 20, I batted against Alan Ward - opening bowler for Derbyshire and England; when I was 33, I faced John Snow – opening bowler for Sussex and England and when I was 38, I batted against Wayne Daniel – opening bowler for Middlesex and the West Indies but none of them ever bowled me a ball as quick as that one.

It hit me full on the little toe and the one next to it of my left foot. The pain was awful and, as I lay, writhing in agony, I heard an appeal screamed at full volume.  I almost forgot the pain as I saw Sam signal four runs. 

What?  My bat had been nowhere near the ball. They couldn’t be runs. Surely there had never been a clearer case of leg byes, or more probably, Leg Before Wicket?

Eventually, I got to my feet.  “Are you OK to carry on?” their skipper asked.

I mumbled that I was.  Later that evening after an x-ray in Barnet hospital, I was told that two toes of my left foot had cracked bones.

The second ball I received was as quick as the first one but on off stump.  I judged it to be a half volley and I intended to smack it straight back over his head thinking that would teach him a lesson.  

I was wrong.  It was not a half volley but a ball a little short of a length. I checked my swing, but I still made contact and succeeded in lifting it over the bowler’s head as he followed through.  It should have dropped harmlessly to the ground.

But….that is not what happened.  It was dropping out of the reach of anyone and there was an easy single to be had but I shouted, “No!”  

It was pure altruism on my part.  It was a far, far better thing I did than I had ever done before.  I could not expose a twelve-year-old boy to that bowler, even though he was already a better batsman than I.  I had to see out the rest of the over.

The ball continued on its parabolic path and fell, not on the ground but right on the top of the middle stump.  It then bounced up into the hands of mid-off who was running in: possibly a unique dismissal.

Wilton ct Shakir bowled Younis 4

It was the Waqar Younis who became one of the greatest and quickest bowlers ever to play the game; 373 test wickets for Pakistan in 87 test matches at an average of 23.

As I trudged off (it’s hard to trudge when you have two broken toes) with the score at 9-9, I could see 10-year-old James coming out to replace me, apparently without a care in the world.  He was probably having the same thoughts that I was having five minutes earlier.  I turned and walked over to the captain.

“Look,” I said. “This kid’s only ten.  Will you ask your guy to go easy on him?”

“I’ll have a word.”

I waited and James came and stood next to me.  “What’s going on?” he asked me.

The captain and the bowler were having a lively conversation.

“Hang on a minute,” I said to James. 

The discussion between captain and bowler was getting heated.  Eventually, the captain came over.

“He’s taken nine wickets and he wants to take all ten.  He says that he’s never done it and may never get the chance again.  All this kid has to do is survive four balls.”

“Has anyone else done that?”

“Err, no.”

I thought for a fraction of a second. “Then I declare,” I said.

“Don’t do that,” pleaded James.

“I have!  Go and shower.”

Result: Pakistan Eagles 464 – 4 (innings closed) 

Finchley 3rd XI 9 – 9 dec.  

Pakistan Eagles won by 455 runs.

I don’t know for certain, but I am pretty sure that a number of records were set that day.  There were also two positive aspects:

1. The game finished much earlier than had once seemed likely.

2. I was the top scorer!