Josh and Emma were extremely happy with their purchase of
Lavender Cottage, in the heart of the Cotswold village of Little Brooking. They
would not have able to afford anything like as upmarket as this had not Emma been
the main beneficiary of a bequest from a childless aunt who had proved to be
unexpectedly wealthy.
But now here they were, not only settled in a beautiful
house in a delightful village, but subject to the curiosity of their fellow
villagers, who all seem to have lived there for at least fifty years apiece.
It was not the custom in Little Brooking for properties to
be sold on the open market. Cottages were inherited by the next generation – it
had been that way for centuries. However, the previous owner of Lavender
Cottage had had no heirs and left her most of her property to the local horse
sanctuary, which had no choice but to sell the cottage.
That meant that Little Brooking acquired its first actual
newcomers for at least forty years, and Josh and Emma’s arrival was greeted by
a reception committee of virtually the entire village.
The inhabitants of Little Brooking were extremely welcoming.
There was absolutely no animosity shown to the incomers – indeed, the idea of
new blood arriving excited everyone and was regarded as a welcome diversion
from their normal humdrum existence.
The removal van had only just trundled away, leaving Josh
and Emma surrounded by boxes, when the first knock came at the door. An elderly
gentleman stood there, surrounded by an eager throng of villagers similarly
advanced in years.
“Hello, welcome to Little Brooking”, said the elderly
gentleman. “Can I put you down to open the bowling?”
“I beg your pardon?” Josh asked.
“The match – it’s tomorrow, against Prenderby Magna. You
must know about it, surely? We could actually win this year, now that we have a
strapping young fellow like you in the side. Do you normally bat at three or
four?”
Josh was about to point out that he had never batted
anywhere and did not know the first thing about bowling, when the elderly
gentleman spotted Emma standing just behind Josh and directed his next remarks
at her.
“And of course you’ll do the teas”, he said.
“Teas?”
“The lady of Lavender Cottage always does the teas”, the
elderly gentleman told her. “It’s tradition. Admittedly, Mrs Coombs did find it
a trifle hard towards the end – she was well over ninety, after all – but
you’re young and fit and should have no problems at all. It’s always shepherd’s
pie and we like plenty of meat in it. That’s the Little Brooking tradition.”
The elderly gentleman then made his farewells and departed,
accompanied by what Josh supposed was the rest of the cricket team.
By the end of the day not only had Josh become a member of
the cricket team but he was also appointed to a vacant position on the parish
council and recruited to lead a party of Scouts to trek across the Brecon
Beacons in October. For her part, Emma was now a leading light in the Women’s
Institute and President Elect of the Mother’s Union, despite neither being a
mother nor intending to become one for some time yet.
So the next day, being Saturday, saw Josh arrayed in
borrowed cricket whites that were several sizes too big, preparing to deliver
the first over against a hulk of a man who was opening the batting for
Prenderby Magna.
The elderly gentleman, who eventually introduced himself as
Bill Hodge, was more than keen to give Josh a few tips. He pointed out –
although it was perfectly obvious to any observer – that the cricket pitch at
Little Brooking was far from level. Indeed, it appeared to be on the crest of a
hill with pronounced slopes departing in every direction. This meant that the
bowler was only visible to the batsman during his last few strides to the
wicket, which gave the former a huge advantage in that the latter had no idea
when the ball was going to be delivered or at what sort of speed.
This did not make a huge difference to Josh, who had very
little idea how he was going to deliver the first ball anyway. He simply swung
his arm vaguely over his shoulder and let go of the ball, which was neither hit
by the batsman nor taken by the wicket-keeper. Instead it was caught quite
neatly by a very wide third slip.
The next ball was equally wide, but in the other direction.
The third ball was at least roughly in line with the stumps but Josh’s foot was
so far over the crease that the umpire had no difficulty in pronouncing it a “no
ball”. It was slow enough for the batsman to take full advantage and slog it
for six.
Josh’s first over was a record-breaking one for Little
Brooking in that by the time Josh had delivered six legal offerings he had also
produced thirty-seven illegal ones, at a total cost of fifty-nine runs. To
no-one’s surprise Josh’s first over was his only one.
Josh’s fielding skills were no better than his bowling ones,
not helped by the too-long cricket whites he was wearing and the fact that the
ball ran faster down the hill than he had ever been able to. Tripping over and measuring
his length in the wildflowers and nettles that grew in profusion over much of
the cricket field had become so regular after the first few overs that he stopped
bothering to run after the ball. This was noted by the opposing batsmen who
took every opportunity to whack the cherry in his direction.
The mid-match interval could not come soon enough for Josh,
but it was far too soon for Emma. What she had been unable to tell Mr Hodge was
that she and Josh were confirmed life-long vegetarians and that she had very little
idea about how to make a shepherd’s pie. She knew it contained meat, and had
mashed potato on top, but that was as far it went.
Having been given hardly any preparation time she rushed
round to the village butcher’s shop and bought the only meat she knew how to
cook, namely sausages. At the cricket pavilion, which had a small but serviceable
kitchen, she cut these up, placed them in several large dishes and covered them
with masses of mashed potato, which at least she did know how to cook. The
dishes then went into the oven.
She hoped that it would all be ready to serve at the appropriate
time, and they might well have been had she actually turned the oven on. As it
was, the players were treated to plates of cold mashed potato covering raw pork
sausages. In nobody’s eyes did it count as Little Brooking’s traditional
shepherd’s pie.
The Little Brooking cricketers had a large total to make when
it was their turn to bat. Knowing their pitch somewhat better than the opposition
they made a decent fist of it, especially as Josh was not asked to bat at
either three or four as originally envisaged by Mr Hodge. Instead he was
demoted to last man in, with all his colleagues fervently hoping that this
would not be necessary.
Unfortunately, it was.
Josh found himself at the wicket in the position of needing
to score three runs to win the match with only one ball left. His earlier
experience having told him that running anywhere in those cricket whites was
likely to prove disastrous, he reckoned that slogging the ball was his best
bet, so he just hoped and prayed that he would get a ball he could hit good and
hard.
The Penderby Magna bowler eventually crested the rise and
sent the ball zinging towards Josh. He shut his eyes and swung the bat in what
he hoped was the right direction. Amazingly enough, it was. The ball flew off
the bat high and wide, heading out to third man. At least four Penderby Magna
fielders headed towards the point where it was likely to land, with the distinct
possibility that they would collide and land in a mangled heap.
The voice of the Prenderby Magna captain rang out. “Leave it
to Thompson”, he shouted.
The fielders all stopped in their tracks and the ball thudded
into the ground. The captain then remembered that Thompson had a heavy cold and
wasn’t playing that day.
Meanwhile Josh suddenly became aware that his playing
partner was charging up and down the pitch and shouting “Run!” at him at frequent
intervals. Josh was therefore late in starting and had only completed one run in
the time that his companion managed all three.
By the time the ball was thrown in and the bails removed
from Josh’s wicket he had fallen headlong in the middle of the wicket midway
through his second run. The cheers rang out from the Prenderby Magna players,
while the Little Brooking team and supporters all knew precisely who they had
to blame for yet another defeat.
Josh and Emma slunk back to Lavender Cottage knowing that their
efforts to support the continuing traditions of Little Brooking had not got off
to the best of starts, in that their performances, on the field and off, had
not been of the best. However, Josh had only confirmed what he knew, namely
that he was terrible at cricket, and Emma was also happy in the knowledge that
cooking anything that contained meat was way beyond her culinary skills.
Old habits die hard, as both Josh and Emma knew full well.
© John Welford
