MY HAVEN – DAVID LLOYD

The legendary cricket commentator and former England player, 69, at his Yorkshire holiday home

1 OLD ROCKERS

Although I come from Accrington in Lancashire I’ve fallen in love with the beautiful village of Coxwold on the North Yorkshire Moors where my wife Diana and I have this holiday cottage. It’s lovely countryside and we’re spending more and more time here with our fox terrier Tags, who’s on the sofa. I love to go out on my 800cc tourer motorbike, pictured here. I didn’t take up biking until I was 60 but when I go on Sunday rides I’m one of the youngest there – it’s all the old rockers on their bikes.

2 GONE FISHING

I love fishing and this is one of my rods – sadly I’ve got all the gear but no idea. You can stand in a beck near the cottage and see otters and kingfishers and feel miles away from everything, although I’ve only ever caught one trout! I’ve been salmon fishing in Scotland a couple of times with Ian Botham and Michael Atherton and I caught nothing there either. Atherton’s the best fisherman, he’s got stealth. He’ll sit and watch and study the water, whereas Beefy and I just cast straight in.

3 THE ODD COUPLE

Here I am with my mum and dad, Mary and Dave. My mum put me in dresses and curlers when I was little because she wanted a girl called Gwyneth. She was a tyrant, whereas my dad was quiet and kept budgies. He was an ‘operating theatre technician’. I thought that meant he worked at the pictures, but actually he was at the hospital preparing the theatre for operations. He’d sometimes come home with an appendix in a jar after he’d helped with an operation and keep it like a trophy in the shed.

4 SPECIAL HONOUR

This Special Achievement award given to me by the England and Wales Cricket Board in May took my breath away. I started playing for Lancashire in 1965, was an England player and coach and I’ve been commentating since 1999, but the England cricketers and management right now are exceptional. I’m chuffed that I can call a number of them pals, play golf with them and go for dinner. As a commentator I also won a BAFTA this year, but that was mainly for Sky’s coverage of the 2015 Ashes.

5 PINT AND A TRIM

This is my homemade sloe gin, but if anybody in the pub asks where I find my sloes growing I won’t tell them. I go to the pub for the conversation, not for one-arm bandits or music. In the next village of Carlton Husthwaite the talk in the pub’s all about horses, and I love dressing up in this tweed suit to go to the races at Sedgefield, Wetherby or Thirsk. I also go to a nearby pub where every five weeks they do haircuts. You can get a pint and a trim – last week the lady managed 15!

6 CRICKET BATTY

This is one of the bats I used to get my top score of 214 not out playing for England against India in 1974. I then took it to Australia on tour where I got it signed by the great Don Bradman, and all the players in that series like Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee, but they did it in biro and it’s fading. I was good enough to get into the England side but not quite good enough to stay in. I had my moment of glory though, and now I’ve got the best job of all – in the commentary box.

As told to Andrew Preston. David, formerly of BBC’s Test Match Special, is commentating for Sky Sports throughout the summer.