Cricket Tragic Heads to Lord’s for the Fifth Time

After Australia’s exciting win at Edgbaston (First Test) I am on my long planned visit to London with the major attraction being the Lord’s Test.

Many months ago, with the pandemic still upmost in people’s thinking, I decided to not travel by my usual Sydney/Hong Kong/London route, but try the Sydney/Perth/ London direct route with Qantas. Swires have again kindly allowed me to use one of the Buckingham Gate flats atop their modest Head Office building, wonderfully located a stone’s throw from the Palace.

Friday 23rd June

As usualI I am busy navigating with my OzRunways app working well on my mobile phone.

As previously, I am surprised how far south flights from Sydney to Perth go. Whereas on the ‘big picture’ map it seems Sydney and Perth are on much the same latitude. On this occasion we went down as far as Yea (Victoria), south of Hamilton and over Mt Gambier (SA). Then headed out over the Southern Ocean well south of Millicent. Clearly we are going to be well south of Adelaide, Kangaroo Island and the bottom of Yorke and Eyre Peninsulars. My guess is we won’t see land again until about Esperance.

Apart from some turbulence on take-off we are enjoying smooth conditions cruising at 800-1000km/h at 40,000 feet – nice numbers!

Last night I got my ‘knickers in a knot’ when my Boarding Pass for Perth/London showed my seat had been moved from a window to mid-plane. It seems that my window seat may have a problem (broken) and only Perth has the power to shuffle seats. So I am keen to have that matter corrected on arrival in Perth after the five hour flight from Sydney. I surmise that most of the Perth/ London flight will actually be in darkness, but I can never get my mind around time changes and the Earth’s revolutions. With conditions in HK now apparently more settled I should have gone Cathay, stayed a day or two at my favourite East Hotel and repeated that lovely daylight flight across China, Siberia, Russia, Poland and Western Europe. May have even got an upgrade!

Since writing the above much has happened. Pressure to improve my seat situation for the Perth/London flight was to no avail. It was revealed that there were five broken seats in Business Class! Maintenance? Hope the wings are screwed on properly! We took off around 7:00PM.

Some three hours out of Perth the Captain advised that we had a medical emergency on board and a decision had been made to return to Perth! I hadn’t noticed, but the aircraft had actually already been turned around. After about an hour backtracking towards Perth, another announcement was made that we were now going to Singapore. We arrived Singapore around 1:00AM

The medical emergency was an elderly man suffering what was diagnosed as a heart condition. He was sitting in my broken seat-7K!! I noticed with the support of paramedics he was able to walk from the aircraft. We were told that we would have to stay overnight – crew hours?

As 246 unexpected arrivals, we were subject to tight security processing. Herded into a distinct spacious area, two locals had to individually process each passenger through completion of a very user unfriendly on-line form, pick up our luggage, go through customs and immigration and eventually catch taxis, paid for by Qantas, and conveyed to allocated hotels. Everyone was tired, frustrated and cranky. I suspect that we Business Class passengers got the pick of the hotels, mine was the  palatial Goodwood Park along with most of those sitting around me on the aircraft. At the airport (Changi) we were all handed a letter from Qantas full of abject apologies and advising we were scheduled to depart at 9:OOPM later that day. It was about a 30 minute drive into central Singapore and I got to bed sometime between 3:00 and 4:00AM – out on my feet. Quite a day!

Saturday 24th June

I had about five hours sleep before breakfasting, in the coffee lounge with a Qantas provided voucher. Did the same at lunch time when we were advised that there was to be a further delay with departure for London now scheduled for 11:00PM.

In between I slept fitfully and around 4:00 PM decided I needed some exercise notwithstanding very high heat AND humidity.As advised by the porter I headed left and walked a kilometre  or two  downtown to Orchard Road and Singapore central.  A massive busy shopping area. To cross the busiest of roads you had to go below ground where I subsequently discovered most people, like me, become disoriented.I got hopelessly lost, walked at least a kilometre in the wrong direction before being guided by a most cordial, articulate part Indonesian man, down and up escalators to a corner where I recognised the road I had come down. Returned to the hotel very hot! Singapore remains a vibrant successful little island as I recall from Gail and my visit in 1970.

As we were preparing to depart for the airport about 8:00 PM, I suggested that I could share a taxi with a  middle aged woman and we could pocket one of the individual fare funds we had been given.She agreed to share the taxi, but insisted on returning her  funds to the receptionist (Qantas). I thought they owed us plenty!

This lady was very good company and turned out to be a medical doctor (GP) Laura? who practises in Fremantle. She has a grown-up family and her husband works in the mining industry (Anglo American). She grew up on a farming property at Bruce Rock in WA. She Is not happy with her father’s heavy use of chemicals and fertilisers. I pointed out that we are feeding the world better than ever. She was not convinced! 

On the flight out of Perth she was sitting behind the man who had the heart turn (in “my” seat which was actually broken) and along with a plastic surgeon, formed the on-board medical team assisting the crew with diagnosis. It was interesting to hear how the situation was managed. Qantas immediately formed an on ground medical team who, based on the on-board information, made the decisions as to what should be done.

On the aircraft sitting nearby in the ‘A’ row was a man (Dr.Lachlan Henderson) and his wife,  a psychologist (Western Australians) and behind them a Perth eye surgeon. Lachlan Henderson is on the Cricket Australia Board and when we realised we were both going to London for the cricket, we had much common ground and many mutual acquaintances, particularly from  those days when I frequented the Adelaide Oval SACA Committee Room, per favour of Ian McLachlan.

I raised with them the issue Qantas had to face with the medical situation. What they did was clearly very expensive and placed great stress (sleep deprivation, inconvenience  and frustration) on the other 245 passengers. Should they have risked the patient and  gone on to London with the patient supported by the on-board medicos and oxygen . I think we agreed it would be a very hard call.As we departed Singapore, the report was that the patient was “OK” in a Singapore hospital.

Sunday 25th June

The long trip (11 hours) onto London was uneventful and we arrived 26 hours behind schedule early on Sunday morning. Caught the Heathrow/Paddington Express and a friendly taxi driver who knew Australia as a lighting technician who had toured with Billy Joel, took me from Paddington to Buckingham Gate. I found my practised way to the flats through the back door.

I walked down to Westminster Abbey for the 3:00PM Evensong. I was ushered to a good seat by a very pleasant elderly lady usher who subsequently invited and conspicuously escorted me to a single “best seat in the house” below the pulpit where Kate and I sat when last here. I was very touched. A young man (they all are now) preached a very interesting sermon which I must read again on the Abbey website. 

Each or the four standard flats had a sign nominating who was arriving including Flat D with my name on it. Flat E, the smartest, which Adrian and Judy Swire were occupying on my arrival in 2015, and which Adrian had tried to persuade me to move into when they departed, was marked as being available. I also noted it had a microwave which the others didn’t. There was also only a double bed in Flat D and I was reluctant to impose myself, with my erratic sleep patterns, on grandson Charlie Boyd who was coming to stay on the morrow. I was considering buying a microwave, but fortunately the shop I went to was closed.

Monday 26th June

At 6:30AM I did my usual walk (Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Marble Arch, and Buckingham Palace). All so appealing and familiar. 

About 9:30 I rang Merlin and Sam’s Executive Assistant (Secretary) who told me that she was working from home. I told her of my wish to see Merlin and/or Sam and she booked me for a meeting with Sam at 11:00AM. I also told her of my need for a microwave and she mentioned there was one in Flat E. I told her that I noticed the sign on Flat E that it was available. The outcome was that, to my delight, I was moved into Flat E for the duration of my stay and Charlie could use Flat D tonight. Fantastic!

I had a pleasant discussion with Sam at 11:00 and arranged to bring Charlie to meet him at 4:00. I then topped up my Oyster card at the same little shop across Victoria Road  and went out on the tube from Green Park to Lord’s to pick up my tickets for Days 4 and 5 in The Pavillion.

It was good to see Charlie and he was very impressed by the office decor. We lunched around the corner, had a very good meeting with Sam, had a drink at “The Colonies” before going to “The Albert” across the road for another drink and dinner. Only one dinner turned up after an hours wait when we had ordered two, we had an altercation with the waiter and Manager who we believed had charged us for two dinners, we were wrong and when looking what was on my credit card we were confusing $AU with pounds sterling! Why they thought two of us would order two drinks and only one dinner is a mystery.

Tuesday 27th June

Charlie and I did my 6:30 walk and had breakfast nearby, before he departed. I had a lazy day after another poor night’s sleep, not helped by a midnight phone call from an old girlfriend in Australia, who had no idea I was in London.

Wednesday 28th June to Sunday 2nd July – The Second Test at Lord’s 

At 10:00AM I met up with my cricket watching mate, John Russell at the Lord’s North Gate and handed over the spare ticket.We met up with John’s Norfolk cricketing farmer friends. At lunchtime, after champagne imbibing (you could hear the corks popping all morning) we had a delicious picnic lunch in a very crowded Nursery area.

Here is a summary of a great match courtesy of Cricbuzz

I look back on this match with great satisfaction. It really had everything. Remember Stokes sent Australia in and we scored over 400. Both teams resorted to short leg side bowling – sometimes defensive and other times aggressive. For the first three days our seats were in the top row of the new Compton Stand with a lot of visiting Aussies with seats by way of introduction from the SACA. We met up with a group of Sydney’s St. Joseph College Old Boys now scattered all over. Some of them from Temora way, knew Tony McManus who they refer to as “Bre”. Seats were a long way from the play, but nice to stand up at random with no-one behind us. 

For the last two days we got our reciprocal seats in the famous Pavilion. Our favourite seats are a single row at the front of the second level under the TV cameras looking straight down the pitch. By getting in the queue early (before 6:00AM) we got them both days as I have now done on each of my five consecutive visits to Lord’s. Steve Smith was Man of the Match. As much as I admire Smith I thought it should have been Stokes. His century at the end is the best attacking Test century that I can recall ever seeing.

On Saturday morning we had breakfast in the Old Library within the Pavilion with my Westminster Abbey friend Canon Ralph Godsall and met him again in the Bowlers’ Bar at close of play. He was his usual effervescent self with many subjects of mutual interest, including stories about background incidents at the recent Coronation.

Monday 3rd July – Thursday 6th July

After five days of intense concentration and two very early mornings to get our Pavilion seats, I was tired and needed a rest. Fortunately I had nothing planned and following long walks each morning I have had a relaxing few days.

On Tuesday morning I had a very enjoyable hour with Merlin Swire. As I reminded both Merlin and Sam, we have known them since the time we took them both with our kids to the Royal Easter Show – Merlin was 18 and Sam 11. As I understand it they effectively now run the massive Group. 

Merlin and I discussed a whole range of Group affairs and he generously brought me up to date on many developments of recent years, including the withdrawal from Australia. I got the impression that the business is going very well. I couldn’t resist telling him, as I had Sam, that Clyde as I had it when I retired in 2007, with great support from Edward Scott before his untimely death, would now be a $bn company. I now regret not adding that the great portfolio of properties that we put together over twenty years was undone by John and Bill in two years! What is new is that we now have the value of hindsight with the huge escalation in land values. However, we agreed that life moves on!

I am very grateful for having the privilege of working for a great family and continuing to have such good relationships. I have never regretted making the move from Dalgety to Swire.

Friday 7th July

My Qantas Singapore/Sydney flight was scheduled to depart around 6:00PM. The third Test started at 11:00AM. There was no coverage on the TV in Flat E – presumably no paid subscription. Channel 9 in Sydney has no licence for overseas coverage. However, you can pick it up on the stream on the mobile. In the early afternoon I decided to go to Paddington and thence to Heathrow on the Heathrow Express from where I counted on watching the cricket on the big screen in the Business Class lounge. Alas Qantas also had no subscription so I continued to use my phone!

The flight home via Singapore (again) was uneventful, aboard one of those monstrous, double deck A380’s, carrying 500 passengers. I was very pleased to find son Michael dutifully waiting for me at Sydney Airport.

As I look back on this trip the highlights were:

• The direct Perth/London flight diverted via Singapore and arrived in London 26 hours late!
• The upgrading to Flat E in Swire House and the interactions with Sam and Merlin Swire.
• Having grandson Charlie stay overnight in the Swire flats.
• The interactions high in the Compton Stand at Lord’s with John Russell, his Norfolk farming mates and the St Joseph College (Sydney) Old Boys cohort.
• For the fifth time getting our favourite seats and meeting up with Ralph Godsall in the Pavilion.
• The wonderful Test match won by Australia, but including Stoke’s dramatic (angry) innings.
• Many kilometres walked around my favourite London sites, including one through Hyde Park to the Serpentine.

Is this my London swansong? Probably!