Reader’s Memory – Cricket from another planet & other serious concerns

Oliver’s Mount, named after the late Mr Cromwell, is an area of high ground that overlooks the most Southerly area of Scarborough. I do apologise! – What am I saying?! – I mean of course, that it overlooks Scarborough’s “least Northern” part!

These days, motorcycles hurtle around the summit with joyful abandon, which sounds exciting and frivolous and fun and is therefore, exactly the sort of thing that Cromwell was not overly keen on. In fact, Oliver seems to have frowned upon the idea of people enjoying themselves full-stop, and banned, amongst other things; Christmas, singing and football. It is difficult then, to imagine him belting along the twists and turns of the hill that bears his name, astride a roaring “Iron Horse”, gurgling with delight, as his face, warts and all, meets the Yorkshire air at one hundred miles per hour (and I say this, despite the historical evidence that as a younger man, “Jolly Olly” liked a good old knees-up a little more than perhaps he should have done).

It is 1970. I am in Scarborough. My name is Robbie and I am six and three-quarters years old. That ‘threequarters’ is of crucial significance to me: It means that I can tell anyone who asks me my age that I am nearly seven – anyone except girls, obviously. I don’t › talk to girls. I like females well enough but they are a complete, if beautiful, enigma to me. As I write this, I am very nearly 60 and I realise, that they still are.

I have woken up in a room that is overlooked by Oliver’s Mount and that is important. Nana always says that if there is enough blue over Oliver’s Mount to make a sailor a pair of trousers, then it’s going to be a sunny day. Another mystery that the intervening years have not been able to solve is precisely how large a pair of Sailor’s trousers needs to be. Surely it depends on the size of the sailor. I asked Nana once, but she kept her own counsel regarding her knowledge of seafarers, and their nether garments.

My Sooty and Sweep alarm clock says that it is already eight o’clock. I scramble down to the foot of my bed and gawp out of the sash window, rendered un-openable by successive generations of cream gloss paint. My heart leaps. It is not raining. Not only does this mean I shall not have to drift through yet another day of reading the Beano Summer Special whilst chomping through a bag of pear drops – so astringent that they would now fall foul of regulations concerning chemical weapons – but it is, in actuality, genuinely sunny – no, really! There is enough blue over Oliver’s Mount from which to fashion multitudinous pairs of trousers, for an aircraft carrier full of sailors. This means only one thing, and it is the one and only thing that I care about at the moment: We shall be going to the beach today!

Nana always says that if there is enough blue over Oliver’s Mount to make a sailor a pair of trousers, then it’s going to be a sunny day.

Nana, Mum, Dad and my brother, John, are already downstairs and furnished with toast. John is six years older than me and has reached the age where he has, inexplicably, started to care what he looks like, even to – or perhaps, especially to – girls.

This is incredibly annoying, particularly as it manifests itself in what I regard as the colossal waste of time known as “getting ready”; no one says what he is “getting ready” for. Why does John actually need to comb his hair? It is yet another mystery. Childhood, it seems, is full of them. Mum and Nana are equally aggravating in their meticulous preparations to leave the house.

Only Dad, like I, is anxious to get going as quickly as possible. His reason is that he is worried – if we dawdle much longer then all the prime parking spaces will be gone, by which, he means a place at the Spa.

Scarborough, in essence has two main beach areas, either side of the headland, upon which stands the castle, looming watchfully over the comings and goings of the harbour below. It is vital to get ourselves a place on the “least Northern” Bay – preferably the Spa area. This is because although the sand is pleasant enough the further one heads towards the lighthouse, it is also soft, un-compacted and useless for playing Cricket. For the uninitiated, I should explain that the performing of a match at Cricket is a most momentous occupation.

There is a sense in which, I suppose, that all human activity may be regarded as a ‘pastime’. After all, one day (probably on a Tuesday) in about five billion years the Sun will explode, life on Earth will cease and all human endeavour will have been rendered, to one degree or another, rather pointless. Though some may find absorption of this fact somewhat depressing, I have to admit that I take great comfort in it. I have always been wary of those who claim to have discovered a purpose to their existence – other than simply trying to have as good a time as possible, without causing too much damage in the process. Certainly, it appears to me, it is those self-same people who create most rumpus and spoil it for everyone else; starting unnecessary wars, building unwanted by-passes and pointlessly re-naming chocolate bars and breakfast cereals. Nevertheless, Cricket, I can affirm most assuredly, is not a ‘pastime’. Recreational engagement in it, if not actually important, remains the least futile of all human activities. No – indeed, finding and claiming the smoothest, firmest and most unyielding patch of sand on which to play beach cricket is essential, and key to the better life. Recognising this argument’s sound, irrefutable truth, Mum and Nana agree that they will take the short walk down to the “front” and meet us in their own time. This leaves Dad, John and I to go on ahead by car. So it is that 15 minutes (that seemed like eons) later we are ready to embark upon our short journey.

John is still in a faff. He could faff professionally if he put his mind to it. Currently wearing his second-best shoes, he places his ‘pumps’ on the roof of the car to facilitate double-handed faffing with the shadowy and puzzling contents of his ubiquitous carrier bag. Perhaps it is entirely full of combs. To this day, he still seldom leaves his house without a carrier bag and I still don’t know what is in it. Some things are better left unknown.

Eventually he clambers into the seat next to me and we are away. We become aware that for some incomprehensible reason, pedestrians are giving us curious looks as we make stately progress along our route. Some appear to be laughing. We have no idea why this is, until we arrive at the entrance to the parking area that runs the length of the sea wall.

It is still only nine-thirty and there are plenty of bays available. Dad winds down his window, ready to hand over the two shillings or whatever it cost in those days to park (it could have been a farthing, a couple of groats, or even a couple of goats – I have literally no idea. Pre-decimal coinage and its comparative value is lost to me now, like the reason television in the 1970s seemed to be awash with Czechoslovakian platespinning acts, the melodious tones of the Swingle Singers, and the frankly startling gyrations of the Nigel Lythgoe Dancers.

The ticket man approaches our weather-beaten Ford Escort.

‘Morning Bob!’ he says, puffing on his pipe as he greets my father. We are in luck! It is Ted, a chap Dad knows from his days working as a reporter on The Scarborough Evening News. He issues us a ticket but refuses payment. Dad does not protest too much but offers his effusive thanks. I consider what debt Ted feels he owes to my father to afford us such a favour. Perhaps it was something he wrote about Ted in the paper or, more likely, something he could have written, but didn’t…

Having given Dad the precious ticket, Ted says ‘Oh yes! And I imagine you’ll be wanting these…’ and removes my brother’s ‘pumps’ from the roof of the car. He hands them over, with the slightest of smiles on his lips. The puzzled looks we had garnered from passers-by on our journey suddenly made sense. What miraculous substance they applied to the soles of gym shoes in those days I haven’t a clue, but they had obviously clung on with admirable determination: They don’t make them like that anymore! – in fact, they never did…

Halfway down the time-eroded stone steps to the beach there is a brief landing, to the left-hand side of which is a decaying spout, protruding from the seaweed encrusted wall. Presumably this is a relic of the Spa from which this area derives its name. Maybe once, a glorious fountain issued from this point, fortifying Victorian ladies and gentlemen. These days however, it emits no more than an embarrassed and apologetic dribble.

We are ready to commence play with stumps hammered firmly into place (with the handle of the bat – never the blade, unless you want my father to bellow at you like a wounded buffalo). Or rather we would be, if it were not for one small but important oversight: We have no ball.

Chuntering with displeasure, Dad remounts the steps we had so recently descended and clambers up to a row of shops that line the promenade in search of a suitable projectile, ideally a tennis ball.

Chuntering with displeasure, Dad remounts the steps we had so recently descended, and clambers up to a row of shops that line the promenade, in search of a suitable projectile; ideally a tennis ball.

‘Jenkinson’s will have something!’ he calls back to us as he disappears. Of course, Jenkinson’s will have something: Jenkinson’s has everything – Peanut Brittle, Leeds United keyrings, vaguely licentious postcards – everything! In less than five minutes Dad returns, triumphantly holding a ball aloft.

John and I view the object suspiciously. Doubtless it was cheap, but it had an additional air of mischief about it. It is bright orange in colour, not the regulation white (the shocking introduction of exotic yellow tennis balls had yet to be foisted on an amazed British public).

Dad will bowl first. Dad always bowls first, explaining that he may ‘run out of puff’ if he doesn’t. Never one to cut us any slack, Dad’s first ball is of typically good line and length but using my masterful, ‘Boycottian’ footwork, I meet it crisply with a half volley. The ball promptly detonates, showering my unfortunate brother who was fielding, innocently at short leg, in a shower of rubbery detritus, with an explosion so loud that a woman in Essex immediately began writing to the papers in complaint. It had, in short, ‘gone up’ like furry hand grenade.

*(Another note here if I may, for non-Cricket aficionados: this is not supposed to happen…)

As the reverberation died away, it was replaced by another fearsome expostulation of sound, this one, emanating from my father. Muttering oaths and profanities unsuitable for a player of “The Gentleman’s Game”, he gathered up the largest pieces of dayglo shrapnel from the sand and stomped furiously away, back up the steps to Jenkinson’s.

The replacement ball was a luminous pink. This one survived fully three deliveries, before meeting the same unhappy fate as its predecessor, spontaneously combusting on impact with my brother’s foot, as he cut off another fine shot by me – this one destined for the boundary for sure. More fatherly raging ensued, as he stormed off, one more time (and this time with feeling), for yet another encounter with an unsuspecting Mr Jenkinson, where he would tell him once and for all what he thought of him, his shop and his stockpile of incendiary spherical objects.

Mum and Nana arrive. Nana sets up her deckchair immediately behind the stumps. She looks like the oldest and least interested wicket keeper in history. They listen with amused and unsympathetic incredulity to tales of intransigent plimsolls and self-destructing tennis balls. The next day we remembered to bring our own ball and I was given “Out! – caught onehanded, on the rebound, off a donkey”.

It is baffling and perplexing and makes no sense at all, but that, as LP Hartley observed, is the nature of the past for you. Did LP Hartley ever play Cricket I wonder? Either way, one thing is for certain: Oliver Cromwell would not have approved.

Robert Elland’s first novel Love & Light & Marzipan £10.99. Published by Troubadour. Available from all good bookshops.

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NorthernLife July/Aug 23