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In 1976, he and I decided we were going to drive from London to Bombay for Tony Greig’s England tour of India. There were five of us in two cars, one of which was a 1921 Rolls-Royce. The journey took us 46 days and nights and it embraced adventure, fun, laughter and fear. The driving in some parts of Asia was hairy in the extreme and the Khyber Pass bristled with weaponry — all of it friendly as it turned out. And at every border crossing it was Wooders’s charm which made the difference.
I am a great collector of Norfolk cricketing memorabilia and, happily, I have just come by an unusually evocative team photograph of Warwick Armstrong’s Australians when they played at Old Buckenham near Attleborough in 1921. Old Buckenham Hall and the surrounding land was bought before the first world war by Lionel Robinson, a rich Australian businessman, one of whose aims was to buy social acceptance through his cricket ground. He employed Archie MacLaren, the old England captain, as his cricket manager and although the war severely interfered with his plans, six first-class matches were played at Old Buckenham before Robinson died in 1922. Jack Hobbs made 85 in the 1921 game in what he always felt was one of the best innings he ever played.
Norfolk was also home to the Edrich family who lived, farmed and played cricket around the village of South Walsham. After the last war, they would bring a team most years to play Norfolk at the old county ground of Lakenham. The ground and its lovely thatched pavilion have sadly fallen victim to property developers. Going through old papers I came across a scorecard from the 1955 game. In the first innings, W.J. ‘Bill’ Edrich, Denis Compton’s prolific partner for Middlesex, made 124 out of 222/9. His three brothers were all county cricketers. What an extraordinary family they were.
While living in the past like this, I have also been girding my loins for the game’s latest incarnation which has burst upon us this week: The Hundred. It is, in effect, a souped up version of T20 cricket designed as yet another financial palliative in an already overcrowded marketplace. It is so nearly T20 that, in order to sell it, the inventors have rewritten some of the language and made it more politically correct. The two big questions are: will these two instant forms of the game be able to prosper alongside each other? Will The Hundred attract armies of football supporters and persuade them to change their colours? After recent events at Wembley, I rather hope not. But I wish The Hundred luck, for the game is always short of money.
Incidently, last week, a few miles from South Walsham at the Bure River Cottage restaurant in Horning, I had the best grilled lobster I’ve ever eaten.
Also by Henry Blofeld
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