Old Habits: a story

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