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Castaway
1 appearance
Cricket umpire who officiated in 65 Tests, 92 ODIs and three World Cup finals, known for being fair, honest, consistent and bonkers.
On the island
Eight records
I don't know, it might bring back uh some happy memories to my youth and my love life.
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
My mum and dad always made me go to church. ... I've always gone to church, Sue. I still go to church and uh I think that early upbringing by my parents making me go to church has certainly helped me throughout my career
The Way We WereFavourite
That's another great professional artist.
I always like a quick march, and when they do have the bands at Lord's occasionally, when you walk down those steps at Lords, through the members' long room and down the steps, and you hear the bands playing, oh, it gives you a tremendous thrill, you know.
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major (Land of Hope and Glory)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by André Previn
Now, as I said to you, Sue, I am a royalist, and I always remember, if I may tell you this, in nineteen seventy seven, the Queen's Silver Jubilee Year, England were playing Australia at t at Lord's, and the two teams and the umpires, we were invited to Clarence House to have drinks with the Queen Mother.
So Julio Inglacius singing uh singing Feelings with Pam Bunning. I don't know who she is, Pam Bunning. It's a mystery to us all that.
She's a tremendous professional, anyway. I'll say that. But then again, it brings back so happy memories of my early youth, my love life, and I was in y when I was a young man.
I've chosen that is because when I was in Barbados, Sue on holiday, I was swimming in the sea and I bumped into this I thought I bumped into a whale in the sea and I looked up and I couldn't believe it. It was Pavarotti.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:52How old were you when you fell in love with cricket?
When I was at school, uh in those days we played football and cricket at school. That's when it all started.
Presenter asks
5:11Did you have proper bats and balls to play on?
No, that's a good point, Sue. We didn't. We used to have to make our own cricket bats in those days from old pieces of wood and with tin round it and everything and our footballs was stuffed with old rags and things like that. But I think it helped us to succeed in later years. It gave us this will to succeed in in our chosen professions.
Presenter asks
12:12How would you rate yourself as a player?
I thought I was a gut county cricketer, no more than a gut county cricketer, Sue, and uh when I was at Yorkshire with such a great side in those days, we kept winning the championship every year. It was a tremendous side.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
I chose the wisdom annual because as I say, I'm a cricket fanatic and in the Wizard Annual there's everything in there, everything.
The luxury
Television set and satellite dish
My luxury would be a television set. A satellite dish so that I can watch all the Test matches.
When did it dawn on you that there was another way of getting on to those Test pitches by becoming an umpire?
Well, in nineteen sixty nine I was watching Yorkshire play at Headingley, and some of the Yorkshire players came to me and said Have you ever thought of becoming an umpire? ... so I wrote to Lords to apply for the first class county umpire's list, and I was accepted in November nineteen sixty nine.
Presenter asks
25:49Do you approve of these kind of electronic aids [like the third umpire]?
I think the electronic aid is a tremendous help to the umpire for the close run outs and the close stumpings. ... but I would not like to see come in for LBW decisions, the bat pad decisions, the uh court behind decisions, because I feel sure Electronic Air cannot help you with that
Presenter asks
30:42Can you imagine how you will feel on June twentieth, your last appearance at international level at Lord's?
I've got a lump in me throat now, Sue. ... when I walk through the long room, through the members, down the members' enclosure, on to the green at Lord's, out to the middle, I've a tear in my eye now, so I shall shed a few tears. That test match'll tell you that now.
“I've always been of a very highly strung nature. Mannerisms I do on the field I don't realise I'm doing. And I think this is where they all get this bonkers from.”
“I like to think that I've always had the respect of every professional cricketer throughout the world, throughout the cricketing world.”
“I never married, but if I've missed something in life, I've missed having a family. That's one thing I've missed, love. If I could have had a lad, if he'd have played local cricket, it would have given me so much pleasure, and that's one thing that I've missed in life.”
“I still would like to be involved with cricket, because if I go and sit in my seventeenth century cottage at home, Sue, sit in that chair at sixty five years o of age and start worrying and thinking about everything and inventing things to worry about, which I do, I won't live twelve months after that, and I mean that.”