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The end of the cricket season and a dear friend’s funeral made this week a melancholic one
The final day of the last home cricket Test match is always tinged with melancholy. Even when England win a game to draw the series. It’s the end of summer, the nights drawing in and a long slog through to spring. But the weekend had another layer of sadness as about 70 of us gathered in a beautiful Wiltshire garden to celebrate the life of an old friend who died of cancer in the summer. In May he was merely complaining of back pain; two months later he was dead. He was only 64. Ali had a variety of seemingly incompatible careers – there can’t be many accountants who also made shoes for dozens of films including the Harry Potter series and Gladiator – but at heart he was basically an old hippie who was never happier than when driving around in his old VW camper van with his dog and friends in tow. So as well as some touching speeches, there was plenty of Grateful Dead and a spine-tingling live version of Gram Parsons’ A Song for You performed by one of his closest friends, Rod. I knew him primarily as a lifelong supporter of the Hemingford Hermits, one of the world’s worst cricket teams, for whom I played for about 25 years before my knee gave out. My performances were so mediocre it took the rest of the team five years to notice that I had actually retired. Ali never batted, never bowled and never fielded, making him the very best of us. Something that was recognised by him twice winning the award for Hermit of the Year. The second time posthumously. As we left to go back to London, our dog was so overjoyed to see the people who had looked after him while we were on holiday that he tried to get into their car. It was a day marked by loss. Continue reading...