26. Sushi Day

This is strange.  I am sitting in a room at The Belfry Hotel, somewhere near Birmingham, Warwickshire, UK - not Alabama, USA.  

Our flight from Cayman on Tuesday this week was cancelled and we didn’t arrive at Heathrow until 11:45 on Thursday morning.  We spent part of that afternoon getting essentials like UK cell phones (I must try to start calling them ‘mobiles’) and then on Friday, we morning drove up the M1/M6 to a part of England that I don’t know very well. 

We are here for a reunion.  In 1991, for the first time since we graduated in 1968, 16 of us who were friends in the same year at Hatfield College, Durham University, met to recall the past - those days when we had few worries and no responsibilities - and caught up with new happenings.  

Every few years since then, we have come together at various locations around England and done it all again.  At first it was just us blokes but then wives and partners were invited.  This upset one or two of the originals and they haven’t been again; neither, since 2001 sadly, has the only one of us who, so far, has died.  

Attendists / attenders / attendants / attendees / attendingers vary every time and we have met about six times since 1991.   I missed the last one as I was having my liver transplanted.  I’ve been told that they all had several drinks in my honour, which doesn’t seem very appropriate somehow.  This time there are twelve of us, plus wives and partners.

All of us married, six of us more than once.  We all seem to be pretty happy and so that is, I suppose, an indication that all of us have been successful.  One of us makes the Sunday Times Rich List every year and one of us is well known in the entertainment industry but the rest of us just lead normal and unexceptional lives.  

None of them will read this today as they will all have stinking hangovers, recovering from Saturday night, but I must be prepared for some kind of reaction and response the next time I meet them.  That will probably be in the summer of 2015, which will mark 50 years since we all first got to know each other. 

We’ve all retired now but for two days and nights we behave as if we were 21 again.  It’s not sad!  It’s really good fun.

We’re at The Belfry because of its golf course.  I don’t play golf but most of the others do.  I’d like to and I always intended to take it up but I don’t think now that I ever will as my hip and knees will probably stop any kind of a free swing of the club.  Perhaps Caroline will and I can caddy for her.

Anyway, I wrote what follows a couple of months ago when both Caroline and I had bad days; she, because of problems at work; me because I couldn’t find the Branston pickle to put in my cheese sandwich.  

“Sushi Day?” I asked her.

“Possibly,” she said, “Too soon to tell.”

We sat on the porch as the sun was setting over the coral reef, comparing notes and talking about what factors have to be in place to make for a really bad day.

Have you had yours yet?   I hope that I’ve had mine but the trouble with your Sushi Day is that for all you know it’s still to come.  

Mine was not the day I collapsed unconscious with what proved to be terminal liver disease, nor was it the day that I was told that that was what I had.  My Sushi Day was December 15th 1967.  I hope that was when it was, but that’s the trouble with your Sushi Day, you never know.  It could be today - or tomorrow!

About 35 years ago, an 18-year-old Pakistani came to England to try to make his way into professional cricket.  His name was Sushi.  He was a very good batsman indeed and played many times for Middlesex 2nd XI.  

At weekends Sushi played for my club, Finchley.  He could speak good, understandable English but his English reading skills were weak.  One Sunday, he was selected to play in a friendly match against Hitchin CC.  I was the captain of the Finchley team. 

The game was away at Hitchin and scheduled to start at 11.30 a.m.  Hitchin is about 25 miles north of Finchley and Sushi and the others were told to be at the club at 10.00 am.  He had no car and had to go everywhere by bus or tube.  

Ten of us, as well as the umpire and scorer, were there by 10.15 but Sushi was not.  We phoned his flat but got no reply and so we assumed that he was on his way. We waited, but at 10.30 we gave up and we set off in a convoy of 3 or 4 cars.  Remember these were the days when mobile/cell phones were very rare and virtually unheard of. Interesting fact #1  – the first-ever mobile phone call in Britain was made in 1973.

When we got to Hitchin I phoned the club and was told that Sushi had arrived 5 minutes after we had all left and that he had been directed to the Green Line bus stop.  I was told that he should be with us within an hour.

That’s OK I thought.  If I win the toss, we’ll bat first and Sushi can be the next man in whenever he arrives.  Instead of opening, he can bat at 3,4,5 or 6.  Importantly, when it is our turn to field, we’ll have 9 fielders.  Interesting fact #2 – a bowler, wicket keeper and only 8 fielders represents a 9.1% reduction in fielding strength but does, in fact, amount to a 19.7% reduction in fielding efficiency. These figures are based on my own research so don’t argue.

I lost the toss and we had to field.  It was only my wonderful man-management skills and my innate cricket expertise that kept their score to just below 300.  

As their innings ended at about four o’clock, Sushi arrived on the ground.  Everyone, except me, welcomed him warmly but even I had to warm a little towards him when I heard why he was nearly five hours late. 

He’d caught a Green Line bus and got off at the terminus.  Then he walked nearly two miles to the ground carrying a very heavy kit bag containing his cricket boots, pads and two bats.  Interesting fact #3 – in club cricket, any player who always carries two bats must be a good player. 

He arrived only to discover that he was at the right ground but two months too early.  He was at Hemel Hempstead CC and Finchley didn’t play there until September.  

The destination on the front of the bus began with an ‘H’ and he thought, poor reader of English that he was, that this was the right one.  He then had to walk, carrying his heavy kit, nearly two miles back to the terminus and this time, after a very long wait, he caught the right bus to Hitchin.  

Then, he had a one-mile walk uphill, carrying his very heavy kit to where we were playing.  Instead of playing cricket, he’d had a 5-mile slog, just like the sort of exercise the SAS do.

“OK,” I said to him, “where do you want to bat? 

“Open,” he replied. 

“Are you sure?” I asked him,  “You must be very tired. Why not have a rest for half an hour?”  

“Open,” he insisted. So, he did. 

He faced the first ball of our innings.  He raised his bat to leave the ball but he had totally misjudged the line and his off-stump went cartwheeling away - out first ball.  

His walk back to the pavilion was so slow that before he reached it, his successor had received and also got out to the first ball that he received.  

So, for possibly the first and probably the last time in the history of cricket, two batsmen were trudging off the pitch at the same time.  One was 40 yards behind the other and they’d both been out first ball.  Finchley 0 – 2 after two balls and Hitchin’s opening bowler was on a hat trick.

We won the game by 3 wickets despite having been 0 - 2.  It was mainly thanks to a wonderful innings of 110 by the captain batting at no. 5 who I always thought was a much better player than everyone else did.  Interesting fact #4 –  they were probably right.

When I was out – diddled by Sam the umpire - 2 hours later, I returned to the pavilion to find Sushi, sitting with his head in his hands staring miserably at the ground and still wearing his pads. I sat next to him and began to unbuckle my pads. “Are you all right?”  I asked gently.  

He turned his head to look at me.  His eyes were moist.  When he spoke it was with anger, despair, misery and sorrow:

“Worst Day, Whole Life.” 

So, a “Sushi Day” is the worst day of your whole life.  It could be today!