By Gordon Barlow.

(An extract from an essay about cricket posted 16 October 2012).

Most Scots are cheerful folk, but the race does produce some individuals who are dour, humourless and just plain cranky. Ian was one of these. All the same, we were momentarily sorry when Fred hit him with a cricket ball. Fred was our team’s fast-bowler and Ian was half an hour late on an attempted leg-glance. (American readers, please just accept the technicalities without question. They’d take too long to explain. Be thankful I didn’t describe the attempt as a shot off his legs. His legs were never in any danger of being shot off. It’s just – oh, never mind.)

The ball hit him on the back of his thigh, behind the pad. He went down in a heap – in obvious pain and cursing fit to bust. We fielders cut short our appeal for LBW and gathered round the fallen warrior. The umpire wandered down from the bowler’s end. “Are you all right, Ian?” Poor Ian. “Of course I’m not all right, you bloody fool! It hurts like hell and I can’t stand up.” The umpire sighed in sympathy. “Well, I’ve got some more bad news for you. You’re out.” Poor Ian – the only man on the field besides the umpire who didn’t laugh.

The standard of cricket in Vila in the New Hebrides (now Port Vila in Vanuatu) was low enough to allow me to participate without embarrassment – and Ian too, most days. It was the first time I’d played since high school 16 years before, and the setting was too beautiful to resist. The field was a specially cleared space in The British Paddock, overlooking the little harbour with Iririki Island in the middle distance.

(At this time – the early 1970s – the New Hebs were jointly administered by Britain and France as what was formally called a Condominium. Informally, it was called a pandemonium, which fairly describes the chaos that usually results when the French and the British join forces in any venture. I’ll write about that some other time; this post is supposed to be about cricket.)

© Gordon Barlow 2012. All rights reserved.