An Evening with Johnners

by Brian Johnston

  So Bill agreed and the prince went off, changed into a suit and gave Bill the clothes. Next morning, Bill put them on and drove up to the Hobbs Gates at The Oval. On the front of his windscreen it said ‘BBC Radio’, and they looked at it and thought, Hmmm. Arab? New commentator? Johnston’s got the sack, good! and they let him in.

  At The Oval, there is a special space reserved by the back door of the Pavilion, where Bill is allowed to park his car, because he has all these books he has to carry. It is always kept sacred for him. So he drove round as usual, dressed as the Arab, and the steward, seeing an Arab coming into this sacred space, said, ‘Sorry, sir. Do you mind backing out? Only Mr Frindall can park here. Do you mind backing out, please sir …’

  Bill Frindall unwound his window, stuck his Arab’s head out and said, ‘I’ve just bought The Oval. I shall park where I bloody well like!’

  I wish I could tell you all Fred’s one liners, but they’re not quite suitable. I think I can risk this one because it’s very funny. About a year ago he said, ‘Johnners? Hear about the flasher who was about to retire?’

  I said, ‘No, Fred, I haven’t.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘he’s decided to stick it out for another year!’

  He told me a clean one last year. ‘Johnners,’ he said, ‘hear about the Pole who went to have his eyes tested? The oculist said, “Can you read that bottom line on the chart?” The Pole said, “Read it? He’s my best friend!”’

  There are so many stories about Fred, but one which Norman Yardley assured me was true happened in about 1949, when Fred was eighteen or so. Yorkshire used to play matches against various clubs to get fit for the cricket season. Nowadays, people run ten times round the ground or do press-ups, but in those days they used to play cricket to get fit for cricket, which was good.

  They were playing the Yorkshire Gentlemen at Escrick and Fred, very young, virile and tough, bowled very fast bouncers at these poor Yorkshire Gentlemen. Four of them were carried off and went to hospital. They were about twenty-six for six, when out of the pavilion came a figure with grey hair, white bristling moustache, I Zingari cap with a button, and a silk shirt buttoned up at the sleeves.

  Norman went up to Fred and said, ‘Look, this is Brigadier So-and-So, patron of the club. Treat him gently, Fred.’ So Fred, who was a very generous man, went up and approached this apprehensive-looking Brigadier and, with a lovely smile, said, ‘Don’t worry, Brigadier. Don’t worry. I’ll give you one to get off the mark.’

  The Brigadier’s face relaxed in a smile, only to freeze with horror as Fred said, ‘Aye, and with second I’ll pin you against flippin’ sightscreen!’

  Then we have this funny thing in the box about chocolate cake. It is silly, really, but someone once sent me a cake about sixteen years ago for my birthday and, perhaps unwisely, I said on the radio, ‘Thank you very much for that delicious cake.’

  Since then, they have arrived in droves. We were averaging three or four a day last year! Ray Illingworth’s always good for one: he comes in at teatime. We give some to old ladies’ homes and children, we eat some ourselves, and we always have about eight visitors in the box – you can hear them chattering often – so we give them some cake.

  People take so much trouble. Small boys wait at the back of the pavilion and say, ‘My mum’s baked this cake for you, Mr Johnston.’ It’s very touching and they do it beautifully.

  They make wonderful cricket scenes in icing on them. I’m president of a cricket club in Glamorgan – I’m president of about ten different funny clubs – and they come up to Lord’s every year with a cake for me. They always present it to me on the Saturday and this year they had a coloured icing replica of a famous picture in Lord’s Museum, which shows W.G. Grace batting and a fielder stooping down to field in front of the old stand, where the Warner Stand is now. King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra are seen walking around, with Lillie Langtry, the King’s mistress, in the crowd. It’s a famous picture.

  They did a replica of it in colour. It was marvellous; too good to eat and too good to cut, so we put it in our freezer, and when people came to our house, we didn’t say, ‘Come and look at this picture on the wall.’ We took them into the kitchen!

  So it is rather stupid but people are kind, and when people are kind you just say, ‘Thank you.’

  Of course, we played a silly trick on Alan McGilvray a few years ago. Incidentally, I think Alan McGilvray was the least biased and the fairest of all commentators. He was a very, very good commentator and he knew his cricket, because he captained New South Wales in the thirties, when people like Jack Fingleton and Bill O’Reilly were under him, and even Don Bradman on occasion.

  So he knew his cricket, but he didn’t always understand our jokes. At Lord’s, several years ago, I had cut some cake up into slices on the desk alongside me and I was commentating, when I saw him come in. I pointed to the cake and he nodded, and I went on yap, yapping away and saw him take a slice, and I said, ‘That ball just goes off the edge of the bat and drops in front of first slip …’

  I saw Alan put it in his mouth and I said, ‘We’ll ask Alan McGilvray if he thought it was a catch.’ He went pfffft. There were crumbs everywhere! Silly really!

  I’m lucky at having been on air at great moments like winning the Ashes in 1953, when I was on television at The Oval – ‘It’s the Ashes! It’s the Ashes!’ – and again when Ray Illingworth got the Ashes back in 1970/71 in Australia, I was broadcasting back to England.

  But luckily for me, I wasn’t on when the first streaker came on at Lord’s. Remember the male streaker in 1975? He ran on and did the splits over the stumps. Fortunately, John Arlott was on and he described it brilliantly, wittily and gently. He said everything which needed saying; he didn’t hide what he could see but he did it in a way that I couldn’t possibly have done. I’d have got the sack, but he didn’t.

  There was a Yorkshireman who used to send me rhymes about cricket and he sent me a rhyme, which said:

  He ran on in his birthday attire

  And he set all the ladies afire

  When he came to the stumps

  He misjudged his jumps

  Now he sings in the Luton Girls Choir!

  I often wake up and think, Gosh! You’ve been talking for years about a bit of wood hitting a little bit of leather! But there are rewards for it. One of the rewards is the reactions that I get from people. Fred and I were talking once about our dogs. He had a big sheepdog called William and I had a little Yorkie called Mini.

  He said, ‘How’s Mini?’ and I said, ‘I’m very worried about her. We’ve had to put her in a dog hotel for the first time because my wife’s away and our housekeeper’s away. When you leave a dog in one of those hotels, they look at you as if to say, “You’re never coming back for me. I’m being left!” It’s terrible, and I can’t get that picture out of my mind. Still, I must go on with the commentary.’

  We went on commentating and, about an hour later, there was a knock on the commentary box door. Outside was a man with a dozen red carnations and inside them was a little note saying, ‘It’s all right. All well here. I know you’re coming back for me. Love and licks, Mini.’

  A lady in Hounslow had heard me and rung up a florist in Leeds!

  So that sort of thing makes it worthwhile. All the thousands of letters we get make it worthwhile. They don’t always understand us. Some of the letters are marvellous and there are two I always keep on file.

  Once I said that Freddie Titmus was coming on to bowl and I added, ‘He’s got two short legs, one of them square.’ A woman wrote in, ‘No need to be rude about people’s disabilities!’

  On another occasion Ken Barrington had made one hundred and eleven and I said, ‘He’s batting very well now. He’s a bit lucky – he was dropped when two.’ In came a letter saying, ‘Mothers should be more careful with their babies!’

  And you won’t believe this. Once, I was doing a commentary on the annual Whitsun match at Lord’s. Middlesex always used
to play Sussex, and Middlesex were batting, captained by John Warr. They had made about three hundred for three by tea and I handed back to the studio for the tea interval. They came back to me after tea with, ‘Over now to Brian Johnston for the latest news at Lord’s.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘the latest news at Lord’s is that Warr’s declared.’ And, you’ve got to believe it, the BBC duty officer said an old lady rang up to see who it was against!

  But you see, it doesn’t worry me if I don’t make myself understood, because there are other people in this world far higher than me who don’t make themselves understood. I’ll give you two examples.

  Take a judge. You’d think a judge would make himself understood, but this judge was about to sentence a chap who had been found guilty and said, ‘Anything you want to say, my man, before I sentence you?’

  ‘Sweet FA, my lord!’ said the man.

  The judge turned to his clerk and said, ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Sweet FA, my lord,’ said the clerk.

  ‘No,’ said the judge, ‘he definitely said something. I saw him move his lips!’

  What about bishops? You’d think bishops would make themselves understood. These two bishops were up at one of these synods in London, where they go to Church House for a different subject each day. They are having a little tea and crumpets in front of the fire at the Athenaeum, working out the subject for the next day and how they’re going to deal with it. A difficult one for bishops. Premarital sex.

  ‘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?’

  One 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.

  In 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!

  Then 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!

  When 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!

  The 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!’

  Then 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:

  Dear Mr Johnston,

  We do enjoy your commentaries, but you must be more careful, as we have a lot of young people listening. Do you realise what you said the other day?

  They came over to you as Michael Holding was bowling to Peter Willey and you said, ‘Welcome to The Oval, where the bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey!’

  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:

  Dear Mr Trueman,

  I was listening to you the other day about cricket being a sideways game. I’m afraid it hasn’t worked with me. I’m a wicket-keeper and I let eighteen byes in the first over!’

  Now, the other thing they do is send me stories and, as you know, I’m a sucker for stories. They send me stupid riddles: ‘Ask Fred what animal he would like to be if he was standing naked in a snow storm.’

  ‘I don’t know, Johnners. What animal would I like to be?’

  ‘The answer is: a little ’otter!’

  They send terrible jokes: ‘What’s a Frenchman called if he’s shot out of a cannon?’

  ‘I don’t know, Johnners.’

  ‘Napoleon Blownapart!’

  ‘Who was the ice-cream man in the Bible?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Walls of Jericho!’

  Someone rang in and said, ‘What about Lyons of Judah?’

  They told me a marvellous story last year, which I enjoyed: There was a lady driving up the M1 – in the middle lane, seventy miles an hour – but knitting at the same time as she was driving. Very difficult. And sure enough, ‘weeh, wah, weeh, wah’, a police car drew alongside her in the outside lane.

  A policeman unwound his window and said, ‘Pull over!’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘A pair of socks!’

  Then they told me about the whale, who was swimming along in the Atlantic when he saw his friend the squid, and said, ‘Hello, squid. How are you?’

  ‘Ooh, I’m not feeling
at all well,’ said the squid. ‘I’m very ill, not well at all.’

  So the whale said, ‘Well, get on my back and we’ll go and see my friend the octopus.’

  They swam along, the squid on the whale’s back, and they came to the octopus’ house and the octopus said, ‘Hello, whale, how are you?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said the whale. ‘I’ve brought that sick squid I owe you!’

  They told me about the tramp who went to knock on a very imposing house door. A lady came to the door and said, ‘What do you want, my man?’

  He said, ‘I’m very hungry, ma’am. I’d like something to eat.’

  ‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘Do you like cold rice pudding?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, I do.’

  ‘Well, come back tomorrow,’ she said. ‘It’s still hot!’

  A man went into a pub with a newt on his shoulder and the landlord said, ‘That’s a nice newt. Who does it belong to?’

  The chap said, ‘It belongs to me.’

  So the landlord said, ‘What do you call it?’

  ‘I call it Tiny.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s my newt!

  Another one!

  A man went into a pub and he had a white mouse. He said to the landlord, ‘This is an incredible white mouse.’