On the Road: Henry Blofeld
Louise Flind
You’ve followed cricket all over. Where did England’s World Cup Final win rank? It was the greatest game of one-day cricket although whether it beat the 1981 excitement at Headingley, I’m not sure.
Anything you can’t leave home without? A couple of P G Wodehouses – before you go to bed, Wodehouse is the greatest possible fun. Such a delight that he’s getting a memorial stone in Westminster Abbey in September – and not before time.
Something you really miss? I miss my wife very much – but she’s usually with me – and my wine cellar.
Do you travel light? I leave behind either pants or handkerchiefs. When you come home and open your drawer and find your own pants, they’re old friends.
Favourite destination? I have an incurable love of New Zealand, not least because, of all the New World wine countries, I think it is the best.
Earliest childhood holiday memories? I went abroad with my mother once to a lovely French fair and lobbed string over a bottle of wine to win it. In Southampton, my mother insisted I declare it at customs and it got knocked over and broken.
What happened when you crashed into a bus on your bike? At Eton, on 7th June 1957, when I was 17, I was biking over a road, talking over my shoulder to someone, and went straight into the front wheels of a bus. It killed my cricket. I’d been a natural, but afterwards … I had to work at it.
What are your favourite test venues home and abroad? I love Trent Bridge with a passion. The Adelaide Oval, Newlands in Cape Town, Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain and Eden Gardens in Calcutta, with 30,000 paying customers and 130,000 who don’t pay. Lots of cricketers get depressed being on tour for so long – do commentators? I’ve never got within 550 million miles of depression.
Favourite Caribbean island? I used to love Jamaica in the old days – I’m talking 1961 when I first went there and met Ian Fleming and Noël Coward.
Favourite bits of India? Calcutta’s my favourite city. Equally Bangalore and the south, and the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay.
Favourite bit of Australia? Great friends, the parents of Adam Gilchrist, the Australian commentator and cricketer, live in Lismore in New South Wales – it’s splendidly energetic in an uncompetitive way.
Famous cricketing friends? Viv Richards is the most charming, lovely friend – we binge like mad and he always thinks I spent the previous evening behaving as he did, which is flattering.
David Gower lives as he bats in a gloriously sublime, inconsequential way without any real discipline because he’s such a natural.
Beefy [Ian Botham] and I had a publicised row a long time ago but we’ve been good friends since and drunk quite a lot of wine.
What’s it like touring with your one-man show – how many gigs do you do a year? I did about 100 last year. I’m not doing it this year because I think you can push too much down the unsuspecting British public’s throat. The only theatre I’m doing this year is with Graeme Swann.
Are you a traveller? Yes, I am. I’ve got a dodgy hip; so I make use of the wheelchairs I’m afraid. I’m 80 on 23rd September.
Do you work on a plane/train? No, never. I merely drink on a plane.
Do you lie on the beach? I burn to buggery…
Do you have a daily routine? Inspired by my Italian wife, Valeria, the day has to start with a really strong Americano with a drop or two of milk.
Are you brave with different food abroad? I’ve always loved curry – the hottest hot. I found that it was making my elderly tummy protest quite vigorously – like wine. I don’t drink for half the year but
when I drink, I drink with both hands.
What is the strangest place you’ve ever slept in – while being away? Staying at the Penny Royal Watermill in Tasmania. I’d had lots to drink and got into bed and felt as if I was on the Queen Mary. It took me three visits to the loo and being very sick before I discovered I was sleeping on a water bed.
What are you working on at the moment? I’ve got a new book coming out in October – My A–Z of Cricket. There’s a bit about Miss Peyton, who was my first cricketing mentor when I was seven and went to Sunningdale School. Oldie editor Harry Mount’s father, Ferdy Mount, played in the same first game as I did.
Top travelling tips? The great John Arlott said to me, ‘Henry, when you stay in a hotel, always take two corkscrews with you. If you take one and it breaks, you’re buggered.’
Dancing Down the Wicket with Henry Blofeld and Graeme Swann tours the UK 19th September–19th November