After all these years we are still world-class friends... and mickey-takers
Anton decides on a sartorial compromise as he sets out for a first social drink with old pals in 18 months
WHAT a difference a day makes. If my pal Stuart Clay had been born 24 hours later, then he almost certainly wouldn’t be my pal. That would have put him in a different school year to me, and a school year is almost a generation when you are a child.
Another day and he wouldn’t have been my best man. He almost certainly wouldn’t have got locked in the boot of the Redfern Athletic team bus at Lincoln in 1963 (I’ll tell you about that another time), and I’d have missed out on more than 70 years of a close friendship that began at Becket Infants in Gerard Street in 1950, carried us through grammar school, into adulthood, work, and collecting the state pension.
Last week we got together in the bar of a local golf club, together with another old chum, John Cheadle, who starred in this column a few years ago as a shadowy figure known as The Travel Agent. Stuart and I met John at Bemrose School in 1956. Again, school and, later, football helped form a bond that has proved unbreakable. We’ve had different careers – Stuart as a police officer, John as a travel agent who took some of the country’s best footballers around the world, and me writing nonsense – but here we are, still pals, still talking football, still looking forward to each new day, and knowing ourselves to be so very fortunate when many contemporaries never made it this far.
We were also joined by wellknown local businessman and sportsman Ray Selley, who, back in the day, sold furniture on Normanton Road and ladies’ knickers on market stalls across the East Midlands.
Thanks to my overly cautious nature during the pandemic, this was the first time that I’d set foot on licensed premises for almost 18 months. That is if you don’t count a visit to the Evington Club in Village Street last month, to write a piece on its forthcoming centenary. I was working, and it was only two pints.
I was so looking forward to it, the golf club that is. The problem was, what to wear?
The visit to the Evington was easy. Call me old-fashioned but I’ve never gone to work without wearing a collar and tie. I know it’s not expected these days, even at funerals where people turn up looking as if they’ve just nipped out from mowing the lawn, but old habits die hard. Also, you never know what dress code these establishments have. In that instance, none whatsoever it appeared, but you can never go wrong yourself if formally attired.
The golf club wasn’t work, though. Simply a social drink. Still, after a year and a half spent slouching around the house in a T-shirt and a pair of old trousers that Mrs R forbids me to display in public – even answering the door to a courier while wearing them is frowned upon – I felt the need to make an effort.
It was too early for the tuxedo. In the end I decided upon blazer but no tie. A bit of a sartorial compromise if you will. Obviously, I changed my trousers in order to be allowed out in the first place. And into the golf club, probably.
I’m only a social member there. I’ve never tried golf. I wouldn’t be any good at it. I was never much good at any sport. But the Travel Agent raised an intriguing issue: “Have you ever wondered, Rip, if there is something that you’d have been world-class at, if only you’d got round to trying it?”
“Well,” I said, “my hand-to-eye co-ordination is poor. It’s all to do with my left eyeball. The optician at Boots says it’s shaped like a rugby ball instead of a football.” The sporting analogy has a touch of irony.
The Travel Agent thought for a moment: “That’s a pity. Because it obviously couldn’t have been anything to do with running either.”
Pals, eh?
Here we are, still pals... and knowing ourselves to be so very fortunate when many contemporaries never made it this far.