An Evening with Johnners (15 page)

‘For instance,’ one said to the other, ‘I never slept with my wife before we were married. Did you?’

The other one thought for a moment and said, ‘I can’t remember. What was her maiden name?’

I
must tell you a famous story from the Athenaeum. It’s where all the bishops go, and there was a bishop who’d had a very good lunch. He’d ordered a brandy and asked the steward to go to get him some soda. Then he dozed off and was sitting asleep in his armchair when the
steward
came up and went
psssttt
into the brandy.

The bishop woke up with a start and said, ‘Is that you out of bed again, Millie?’

O
ne serious bit of advice. Nothing to do with cricket really, but if you’re making a speech at a cricket dinner, or anywhere, and you make a mistake, never stop to
apologise
. Because if you do, people know you’ve made a
mistake
. If you don’t apologise and go straight on, people say, ‘What did he say?’ and, by that time, you’re talking about something else.

I’ve carried this out over my cricket career, because I’m famous for making quite a lot of gaffes. I don’t do them on purpose, but in a six-hour day you’re bound to make the odd mistake. A lot of them are very old, but here are one or two.

I
n 1961 at Headingley, the Australians were fielding and I was doing the television. The camera panned in and showed Neil Harvey at leg slip, and he filled the screen. Now if you’re doing a television commentary and
someone
fills the screen, you’ve got to be very quick to talk about him, otherwise the camera goes off and shows something else and you’ve missed the chance.

So without thinking, very hurriedly, I said, ‘There’s Neil Harvey standing at leg-slip, with his legs wide apart waiting for a tickle!’

I didn’t speak for about three minutes after that!

T
hen I went to Hove, for radio, where Sussex were playing Hampshire. Hampshire had a chap called Henry Horton who had a funny stance. When he batted, he stood more or less parallel to the ground, leaned right forward and stuck his bottom out.

I thought I ought to let the listeners know, so I said, ‘He’s got a funny stance, he sticks his bottom out.’

Then I meant to say, ‘He looks like he’s
sitting
on a
shooting
stick,’ but I got it the wrong way round!

W
hen Ray Illingworth was captaining Leicestershire, the studio came over to me once and I said, ‘Welcome to Leicester, where Ray Illingworth has just relieved himself at the Pavilion end!’

At Old Trafford on a Saturday – England against India – it was a dreadful day, pelting with rain and very cold. All the Indian spectators were huddled together in the crowd,
looking miserable. Radio Three came over to me, asking, ‘Any chance of any play today, Brian?’

I said, ‘No, it’s wet, it’s cold and it’s miserable.’ I meant to say, ‘There’s a dirty black cloud,’ instead of which I said, ‘There’s a dirty black
crowd
,’ and there they all were!

T
he most unfortunate gaffe was in 1969 at Lord’s where Alan Ward of Derbyshire was playing in his very first Test match, bowling very fast from the Pavilion end to Glenn Turner of New Zealand.

Off the fifth ball of one of his overs, he got Glenn Turner a terrible blow in the box. Turner collapsed, his bat going one way, his gloves another. The cameras panned in and I had to waffle away, pretending he had been hit anywhere but where he had – as it was a bit rude!

After about three minutes he got up, someone gave him his bat, and I said, ‘He looks very pale. Very plucky of him, he’s going on batting. One
ball
left!’

T
hen there was the one that I didn’t know I’d said. I’m still not sure whether I did or not! That was after the 1976 match against the West Indies at The Oval, when a lady wrote to me and said:

I’
ve digressed a bit. To go back to all these letters, one of the great things for me is the number we get from young boys and girls. They all sign, ‘aged eight and a half’ or ‘aged ten and a half’, which is good, because I know how difficult it is now for cricket in schools. But from the number of letters we get, at least they are listening and, I hope, getting an interest in cricket and one day will have a chance to play it.

Sometimes the letters are technical. They want to know about laws, or about cricketers, and we had a
wonderful
one.

Fred had been going on all afternoon, saying, ‘
Johnners
, cricket is a sideways game. Get the left shoulder over the elbow, a straight bat – sideways on. When you’re
bowling
– sideways – get the swivel action, look over your left shoulder. It’s a sideways game, Johnners, a sideways game.’

He went on like this and he was quite right. It is a
sideways
game. About four days later, we got a letter from a young boy, who wrote: