1930s under the captaincy of Lord Tennyson. Alf was running up to bowl the first ball of the match when a vengeful curry from the night before began to make its presence known. Sensing disaster, he did not deliver the ball when he reached the wicket but, to general astonishment, sprinted past the stumps and straight off the pitch into the pavilion. A few minutes later, as he sat wretchedly in the washroom, Lord Tennyson knocked on the door. ‘Alf,’ he enquired, ‘can we have the ball back please?’
It is difficult to capture the special fascination of cricket. It is unique. It has grace and charm and athleticism. It is unpredictable. It can change the mood of a spectator from lazy contentment to excitement within moments. A game can last up to five days, but the outcome may be uncertain until the end; changing weather conditions can up-end the state of a game. Above all, with occasional lapses, cricket is played with a generosity of spirit that is as refreshing as it is unfashionable. It is, I think, a very English game, that still encapsulates old values.
From the very start, cricket bred characters that the literature of the game has kept alive. Cricket lovers can talk for hours about the virtues of players they never saw, and the greatness of matches long ago. If I ever get to the Elysian Fields I intend to watch Trumper, and Grace, and Ranji, and so many others.
Cricketers are often very modest about their achievements, never realising the admiration they provoke among cricket lovers who do not have their skills. A few years ago, when Harold Larwood, the great old English fast bowler, was awarded his MBE, which was too little for all he did, and too late by several decades, I phoned him up in Australia, where he had lived for many years, to congratulate him. His granddaughter answered the phone but within moments the old man, now blind and frail, was speaking to me. I congratulated him and he thanked me for the award. And then he began to talk not of his exploits, but of his hero, Jack Hobbs, and innings he had played on sticky, treacherous wickets. Harold’s memory was of seventy years earlier, but was as vivid to him as any contemporary event. This was no vainglory, just admiration of another man’s great skill.
Nor is this bashfulness unique to Harold Larwood. I remember being with some former England and Australian international players discussing Bradman’s last Test innings when, to general astonishment, he was bowled for nought second ball by Eric Hollies. Only later when I looked up the match in Wisden, the cricket lover’s bible, did I recall that Arthur Morris, who had taken part in that conversation, scored 196 in that innings. Arthur had not mentioned it.
I would have loved to have been good enough to play cricket at the top level, but the basic skills were never there. I would have improved with practice, but never enough. It often seems to me that top-class sportsmen live their lives upside down. They are at their most famous when young, and end their playing careers at an age when most people in other professions are just beginning to reach positions of influence. Their reward though can be the bliss of fame and fortune and youth together, and the joy of doing something they love supremely well. It is an unbeatable combination, which is why few cricketers I have met ever regret their playing days, even if, for some, life must seem mundane ever after.
Politics is almost a mirror-image of cricket, in that fame and fortune often come with age, and it always surprises me that so few sportsmen carry their fame into public service. Chris Chataway did became a Conservative Minister, Sebastian Coe was a Member of Parliament while I was prime minister, and Colin Cowdrey serves in the House of Lords, but they are comparative rarities.
At school, I found that little was memorable in the classroom. If you worked hard at Rutlish you were encouraged. If you did not, you were ignored, unless you were disruptive; so I retreated to the shadows and stayed there, inconspicuous. Only once was there a price to be paid for not working. At about the age of thirteen or fourteen an opportunity arose for me to sit an entrance examination for Charterhouse. I was keen, but my school was not – only their top academic pupils would sit; they wanted no failures. Nor were my parents happy with the idea: what was wrong with Rutlish? And probably – though they never said so – they were worried about the extra cost a place at a leading public school would entail. I understood this, and the opportunity drifted away.
The years passed forgettably, and I have only sketchy recollections of them. GCE ‘O’ levels in 1959 approached without drama. My parents’ struggle to hide their bad health and poor finances absorbed all their strength, and they did not push me at all. They assumed I would pass my exams as easily as my academic sister had passed her school certificate a decade before. But I had not worked, and I passed only three ‘O’ levels – History, English Language and English Literature.
Although this was self-inflicted failure, there was little reproach from my sick parents. They were, as ever, stoical, but I knew they were hurt and disappointed. They had hoped for so much, and I had achieved so little. I had let them down. And in their hurt I saw with sudden clarity the pleasure it would have brought them if I had produced the results for which they had hoped. It was a moment of deep shame.
I knew I would now have to work harder, but I saw no likelihood of doing this at Rutlish, and went to the headmaster to tell him I was leaving school. He seemed to bear my impending departure with fortitude, and did not object. Nor did he ask whether my parents approved – which was fortunate, since I had not informed them. When I told them later that the headmaster was content for me to leave they did not protest. They had too much else to worry them.
And so Rutlish and I parted around my sixteenth birthday, and I took stock. I had wasted my time at school, and had rarely been happy there. I left with no ambitions, other than a vague wish to go into politics. This had been heightened when I met our local Labour Member of Parliament, Colonel Marcus Lipton, at a church fête. He had talked to me about politics and, seeing my interest, kindly arranged for me to hear a debate in the House of Commons (he probably did not imagine I would turn out to be a Tory).
I fell in love with the House of Commons the first time I saw it, sitting in the gallery watching the committee stage of the 1956 budget. Harold Macmillan, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, briefly came into the Chamber, and after that I knew I wanted to get into the House of Commons, and that I wanted to be chancellor. I could not bear to have other people telling me what would happen to my life – I wanted to make the decisions for myself. I came from a background where you were dependent so much on other people. I wanted to be self-dependent – not just within my own family, my own lifestyle, but self-dependent in helping to determine the sort of life I lived and the sort of country I lived in. That feeling is still there.
My ambition to enter Parliament never wavered, although at the time it seemed an impossible dream. I wrote around for a job, and found one as a clerk at an insurance-broking firm, Price Forbes, near London Bridge. When the interview ended I wasn’t certain of the salary they had offered: was it £250 a year, or £150? Fortunately it was the higher sum, and I was launched into working life.
I bought a suit and opened a bank account. I paid one pound ten shillings a week into the family kitty, and the rest was taken up by travelling expenses, clothes and other routine expenditure. There was nothing left for frivolity. I sallied forth into the world as my father retreated from it.
I can see him now. Thick, overlong grey hair swept back, stern features, shirt and Fair Isle sweater under a tweed jacket, stepping out for the post office as fast as he could, without hesitation, using his walking stick to lever himself upright. He did not stroll – he marched. Near-blind he may have been, but he was devoid of self-pity. He taught me so much: not to be deterred by obstacles, not to give in to fate. For him, triumph and disaster were passing moments, to be enjoyed or endured. When they had gone, he moved on without regret. All this he taught me.
CHAPTER TWO From Brixton to Westminster
THE WORLD OF WORK was a new experience, but I soon realised that insurance broking was not life-enhancing. The rudiments of the profession, however, were simple enough, and I was prepared to accept the boredom of the routine, if there were opportunities to claw my way up the ladder to some serious responsibilities.
It was not to be. Several incidents pointed the way to a new