Ashes Poetry

From capital city to capital city, via the epicentre of the universe, Bakewell.

Best known for its puddings – there are no tarts in Bakewell, the last one retired three years ago, more’s the pity – the town’s has two million visitors each year, each with the aim of getting up my nose, and if you’ve seen the size of it, they’ve not only succeeded admirably but there’s plenty of room for a couple of million more. I like crowds with a purpose. Then they start to resemble armies of pilgrims or demonstrators and have some order and understanding. People come to Bakewell because it’s pretty, not too far away and they’ve always come to Bakewell because it’s pretty and not too far away. Don’t they want something new in life, something refreshing? Locals call them ‘Innits’ because they stand and gawp and point saying ‘Innit marvellous! Innit wonderful!’ Shopkeepers call them the Three Ps – pick up, put down and piss off. Who can blame them? Locals, shopkeepers and visitors. You’d have thought the most visited town in the second most visited national park in the world (Mt Fuji is tops, but that’s got religion, japanese religion, behind it) would have something to tell why it is the way it is.

You’d be wrong. Give me five minutes of your time and I’ll show you a thousand years of history how the markets of Bakewell have moved from where The Rutland Hotel is to the 1997 Agricultural Business centre the other side of the river. You won’t find this simple fact of life displayed anywhere – not in tourist information, not in the streets, and certainly not in the public inconveniences, which are starting to give the Black Hole of Calcutta and the 1963 Cheltenham Cricket Festival trough and pit a good run for their money. Excoriate the National Park, Town District and County Councils for not doing anything better. It’s the Park’s sixtieth anniversary, which they are proudly celebrating but no one’s done nothing on the ground since before Bradman’s last season to explain why Bakewell is Bakewell. Hang your heads in shame, ye servants of the public, hang your heads in shame. Then get on and do something.

Lord’s is quite different. I don’t think it’s the home of cricket. The home of cricket is wherever the game’s played or thought about. But you don’t go to Lord’s because it happens to be there. You don’t go because it’s nearby or you can’t find anything better to do. It behoves purpose, visitors have one thing in mind. You go to Lord’s to watch cricket. Perhaps that’s why it’s known as the mecca of the game, which sounds bizarre when you stare at the minarets of the Regent’s Park mosque across the way. Me, I prefer the Bodlian: it seems a library, a place of learning rather than one of worship. The last time I went to Lord’s was for the first world cup final in 1976. Fantastic. Australia vs Windies and we were right in a group of Windies supporters. My mate Rob took his dad, and the last time he’d been to Lord’s was before the war to watch Hobbs and Sutcliffe – colonial service in India had intervened. “That Basil Butcher he wa’ no player, all front foot. Conrad Hunte, he wa’ my man – hey, Roy, come back ‘ere, you ain’t finished de job, hit ‘im for another six!” But Roy Fredericks had hit his wicket too, and sadly no longer with us. Rob’s dad loved it, scorecard in hand, conche shells next to his ears. I could see him a small boy wondering whether the new kid on the block, Bradman, was as good as they said he was. Surely no one could better Jack Hobbs. I remember Clive Lloyd’s three pound bludgeon hitting four after four with a cannon’s echo. Lord’s is a library, where each spectator is a volume of memories.