‘My dear old thing’ Blofeld bows out
london — Lord’s, ‘the home of cricket’, is known for having a conservative crowd, with modest applause the order of the day.
So anyone observing the prolonged burst of clapping when England were 88 for one on their way to a target of 107, and a series win against West Indies in the third Test on Saturday, could well have wondered what was going on.
The answer was that, after 45 years with BBC Radio’s Test Match Special, itself celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2017, Henry Blofeld had just completed his final commentary stint.
“I’ve enjoyed every moment we’ve had together, it’s been the greatest fun,” he said during his closing moments on air.
“Thank you for listening — you all say you’re going to miss me, I’m going to miss you all terribly.” Unusually for a man best known for his work in radio, Blofeld has long cut an instantly recognisable figure and Saturday was no exception.
Cerise trousers and a similarly coloured cravat were teamed with a pink shirt and lime green jacket, allied to a pair of two-tone cherry pink and white loafer shoes.
Educated at the exclusive Eton College school, which has produced several British prime ministers, most recently David Cameron, and Cambridge University, Blofeld was an outstanding schoolboy batsman. But a cycling accident in his final year at Eton, where his father had been a contemporary of Ian Fleming and the inspiration for the name of the villain ‘Blofeld’ in the author’s James Bond spy novels, meant he was never as good a cricketer again.
The on-field loss was offset by
Thank you for listening — you all say you’re going to miss me, I’m going to miss you all terribly Henry Blofeld, commentator
off-field again, with ‘Blowers’ — whose brother followed a rather more ‘establishment’ career in becoming a High Court judge — going on to entertain generations of listeners as much for his descriptions of what was happening around a ground, be it the progress of London buses or passing birds, as the actual cricket itself.
There was widespread dismay when Blofeld, famed for his “my dear old thing” catchphrase delivered in a voice so aristocratic it might have been aged in a sherry barrel, announced his retirement, with England captain Joe Root summing up the mood of many cricket followers by saying Saturday: “He’ll be sorely missed.”
Not that Blofeld himself has any regrets.
“I am 78 next week — or is it the week after? — and at my age you don’t get better,” he told AFP in an interview before play at Lord’s on Saturday.
“I think it’s better for everyone to get rid of the old farts — they can fart around for too long.”
When Blofeld started his broadcasting career, a ‘tweet’ was the sound made by one of his beloved pigeons and he said there had been a noticeable change in cricket commentary down the decades.
“If I am any good at any thing it’s describing things. Commentary has become more conversational,” explained Blofeld. —