SWISS ALPINE BAR FIRE

To those experienced skiers amongst us, the news of the fire in an Alpine bar in Switzerland, though horrifying, will have hardly come as a shock. Most of us will have shaken our heads sorrowfully and privately believed that it was an accident waiting to happen. For 30 years, I organised and ran annual ski-ing trips at Malvern College, and I am too painfully aware how these things go. By their very nature, school ski-ing trips are not up-market; they are invariably cut-price,

7 min read

HELMETS

“Where’s your helmet, Grandad?” That was the rudest thing that was ever said to me on a cricket field. It was, I think, the last time I played in a match. I had come to the conclusion it was high time to put away my bat for good. Though not yet in my dotage, notwithstanding the reference to being a grandad (many years away from that landmark), I just felt unable to step down a level from professional to club cricket and frankly wasn’t enjoying it anymore. I had come to the cr

8 min read

JUDGE

ROBIN SMITH 1963-2025 Since the untimely demise of Robin Smith last week, I have been frequently asked by friends whether I knew him. In fact, the Smith brothers, Chris and Robin, arrived at Hampshire the year after I left, so no, I never met him, but I know plenty of former colleagues who did. The brothers came to Hampshire at the behest of Barry Richards, one of the county’s undisputed ‘greats’, who had seen them grow up and develop as cricketers in their native Durban an

4 min read

HAVE BAT WILL TRAVEL

Alex Hales I was reading an article the other day about the cricketer, Alex Hales. Outside cricket circles, his name is probably not on everybody’s tongue, though the general public might remember him as Ben Stokes’s partner-in-crime in that infamous punch-up outside a Bristol nightclub in September 2017. His cricket career, by contrast, has flown a little bit below the radar. He did play for England in 11 Test matches, but with only modest success. He made his name originall

5 min read