I met Tommy through a close mutual friend, Olly, who was at school with him. I was all grown up, and had children who had just started at Staines Prep, incidentally where I believe Tommy had been head boy, many years previously. Olly had children in the same class, and we became friends and I was introduced to Tommy amongst others. Tommy, not Neil, because at Halliford School and indeed within his immediate circle of friends there was another Neil, Neil Bennett, thereafter always known as Benny.. you may have grasped the derivations..
This group of school friends are still thick as thieves and with a couple of notable additions who are not Old Hallifordians, meet up most weeks. I think that it is fantastic that some scholarly types take on a lifelong desire to study latin conjugations, not these guys, it was all about the beer!
Tommy and I soon realised we had a mutual love of Cricket, actually this isn’t quite true, for I had a normal passing interest, and he had what can only be defined as an all consuming obsession. If you have ever watched county cricket… well, if you ever do happen to stumble on it, it is a game for purists and die hards, indeed within the UK, there are only 13 people, and a dog, that regularly attend the games. I believe that 12 of them are actually related to the groundsmen, and just go to watch the grass growing, Tommy was the other one. The dog I believe is just hungry and confused. Hampshire was Tommy’s team, and he would slope off to The Rosebowl, and watch at weekends. To be fair, he didn’t go every week, because every alternate weekend was spent with his gran.
Tommy with Ben at Oval
I would like to think I cured him of this County Cricket affliction, and over the next twenty years we spent ever growing amounts of time at the various UK grounds, watching International Cricket…that’s the far more exotic variety of the game, with famous players and expensive tickets, crowds, noise and dogs aren’t allowed.
I know Tommy collected every ticket from every game, and has several albums full, (Did I mention he had a cricket obsession thing…?) but we watched games in every international tour of UK, we became members of Surrey, not with any desire to watch the county game, but purely to get priority access to international tickets. We watched whole Ashes tours, doing every day of test matches, One-day games, we even stooped to T20 matches.. always with a picnic. One notable highlight is the 2005 Ashes series victory at The Oval, it was an incredibly close series, described by The BBC “as the most thrilling series ever” England only needing a draw, the game ebbed and flowed, the banter between the England and Australia fans was fantastic, at one point as Australia had a slight advantage, the England fans started putting up umbrellas, hoping to kid the umpires into believing rain was starting, the Australia fans all responded by putting on sunglasses.. it was nip and tuck, the game did not as expected end on day 4, but was to continue on the 5th day – this is not common, and tickets are traditionally not sold for 5th day, but as it was The Ashes, and The Oval, they had sold them in advance. We were both working on the Monday, and so left, happy, inebriated, with an empty hamper, feeling that England had the upper hand, and that the next day would win the Ashes for the first time since 1986/7. The following morning at 9am I received a call from Tommy at work “Guess where I am?” “Sutton?” “No, The Oval!!” A colleague at G4S had tickets, but one of his party was unable to make it, and he thought of Tommy, he was absolutely over-joyed, it made his decade. England got the draw and did win The Ashes.
Tommy at Lords
I have mentioned the picnic, I will just add a quick comment on The Picnic, for many it is a dried up egg sandwich, and a flask of cold tea… Not for us. the picnic always covered 3 meals, breakfast, lunch and tea, breakfast was a fruit smoothy, something with superfoods, to energise us for the day, with cereal bars for the fibre, and millionnaires shortbread, chocolate tiffin or brownies, because they were nice. For lunch we had certain rules, at Lords (Tommy’s favourite ground) it just had to be Champagne, or to be more accurate, it had to start with Champagne, not before, and never after midday. – Lords is the only ground I know that allows the public to bring in alcohol, it is limited to a bottle each, and so we each would take a bottle of fine Champagne (Never the cheap stuff at Lords!) we also had become extremely adept at smuggling drink into other grounds, we never went short… With the Champagne we had Charcuterie, a vast array of pork products, this I’m sure always amused him, as he knows I’m Jewish and don’t eat pork at home, I think the forbidden nature of it added some spice. (Not that he actually liked spicy food, as the Chocolate Brownie video shows!!) after the charcuterie would be a salad (and you thought he never ate healthily!) and kettle chips (my rule, only Kettle chips!) and usually a pie (Pork obviously!), sandwich or sushi, with a good red wine (one of 2 bottles smuggled in inside pomegranate juice bottle) followed by fresh fruit (OMG, we really were healthy!). Tea would be usually scones and clotted cream with cherries or strawberries, with gin and tonic (one litre in lemonade bottle)… We smuggled drink into every ground, always using the same bottles, I have 2 pomegranate juice bottles, with an expiry date in 1990’s and Tommy always used the same lemonade bottle, and apple juice carton… It became part of the tradition. The picnic became so big and lavish that we used to book a 3rd seat, a childs seat to put it on, and having seen someone with silver platters at Lords, Tommy just had to match them… We had stainless steel goblets for the wine and even stainless flutes for the champagne (but that was only ever at lords…) We did try during a 5 day test (2 picnics supplied by each of us) on the 5th day to buy from the food concessions, but it was dreadful, rubbish food, and long queues. The queues were the problem, as you would invariably miss some play trying to get something to eat, and we were there to watch cricket, so we very rarely used the stalls again.
We went to every major ground in England & Wales, as far north as Durham, West as Cardiff and Bristol, South as Southampton and East as Nottingham stayed in some awful hotels, and had some dreadful curries – He didn’t like spicy food, but it was the tradition when away, one night was the best curry house we could find, the other the best steak…but we had some amazing meals, we talked about cricket, life, politics…not that I can remember any of the conversations now, – quite frankly I couldn’t by the end of the game, a bottle of Champagne, wine and gin can do that to you!
I cannot conceive of a summer not spent visiting more grounds with him, exploring more of the country, we have tickets for this summer already…I can’t imagine not watching the game and talking to Tommy, he was always fascinated and fascinating. Cricket is a fantastic game, but it was eclipsed by him, if I’m honest I went to spend time with him, the game merely a backdrop, his enthusiasm a far greater spectacle. I miss him desperately, and the summer is yet to start…
The closest he ever came to being in MCC…
Simon Carter.