DECLAN LYNCH

Author

Since most contributions to this will be about outdoor activities, I thought I’d take us indoors for a moment, where some of the most exciting events of the Irish summer would take place — at least for those of us who had the BBC.

The Wimbledon fortnight was a quintessential thing of summer, back when there wasn’t so much sport on television, and you could immerse yourself deeply in whatever was happening on the lawns of the All England Club — which would be so green and pristine when John McEnroe first walked onto them, so bare and brown whenever he or Bjorn Borg would walk off at the end with the trophy.

Part of the joy was the unfamiliarity of it, the fact that you were getting involved in something that generally played no part in your life, but now seemed crucial, fuelled by the Robinson’s Barley Water laid out for the players on the umpire’s chair, which looked so inviting and even healthy.

This would set you up nicely for the four days of the British Open golf, if anything an even more overpowering event, because it was concentrated into just four days of television, this great tournament which went on all day long and didn’t finish until . . . well, until they were finished.

Many an Irish homestead which looked so tranquil on the outside, had people inside who were sitting mesmerised by this seemingly endless TV event, all the way through from Thursday morning until late Sunday afternoon. With no ads. And this year, for the first time, the BBC has scandalously relinquished this last great symbol of its commitment to the finest traditions of public service broadcasting. Symbol of the summer.