At the risk of giving a second mention in these Tales to the
English Pub in Charlotte, North Carolina, thus inviting the impression that it
became a regular haunt during my travels there, this Tale starts with a much
needed beer after a very long day of training sessions and customer meetings.
One of the things I did regularly for our machinery distributors was to keep
them up to date with the latest features and innovations on our complex range
of high performance woodturning machinery, and that’s how we spent our
afternoon after an early morning driving into the Blue Ridge Mountains to visit
a massive saw mill complex.
The bar was relatively empty, and quiet. So we spent a while
reviewing our day and talking through what had to be done the next day. As we
prepared to leave, a BBC camera crew came in, straight off their flight and
with all their gear. So we got talking, and it transpired that they were there
to film a celebrity cricket match two days later, on the Saturday. And as
another Englishman abroad, I was given two tickets to join in the fun. The crew
only stayed for one beer, but in that short time I learned that celebrities
such as Tim Rice and Faroukh Engineer would be playing a big part in the day.
What I found astonishing was that the very English game of
cricket should show up in the middle of a country that knows precious little
about it, in a bar where my co-drinkers had largely never heard of the game! By
the time the crew took their leave, the bar had filled up with people dropping
in for a beer or two on their way home from work, many of whom were curious
about this charity event. As I was the only Englishman in an English pub run by
a Scotsman called Iain, I suddenly became the focus of their curiosity, and
those who planned to attend the match began to quiz me about this very English
sport.
I love the sound of cork against willow as the English game
is played out on village greens across the land, spectating from the safety of
a nearby country pub, but I’m afraid that is as close as I have ever really
been to the game of cricket. It was the enforced summer sport at school, but I
was either sent out to field in the boundaries where nothing ever happened, or
I found a way of skiving off for the afternoon! I also find that watching test
cricket can be therapeutic, although again my viewing has only ever been from a
distance, and mainly through a television screen.
However, in the eyes of just about everyone in the bar that
evening, I was English therefore I would know everything about our national
game. So I got asked. The first question was from a rather bombastic,
opinionated man in a bright coloured checked shirt and a baseball cap, which
was simply “So how long does a game of cricket last?” My reply “it depends, but
anything up to five days” was greeted with booming derision “Jeez, five days?
You could die out there!” Not wishing to disappoint further, and with my tongue
loosening somewhat as more beer seemed to arrive gratis on the bar in front of
me, I decided the only thing to do was to blag it, and just tell them whatever
came into my head.
And so it went on, with cricketing terms like ‘googly’ and
‘bouncer’ being given definitions that had never before seen the light of day.
By the time I left the bar, my audience had grown confident with their new
found knowledge, and had started to really look forward to the rather eccentric
spectacle that was about to take place in their city. And eccentric it was!
Barrels of Bass Charrington beer had been shipped across from Blighty
especially for the event, where it was served at the traditional temperature and
described variously as ‘dish water’ and ‘something you would normally find for
free in a swamp’. For my part, I became a target for all those one-night
drinking buddies whose heads I had filled with erroneous cricketing definitions
in the English Pub. My contribution to their lives was to have introduced irony
and English humour which, after a few hairy moments, seemed to enhance their
experience!
The day went off incredibly well: the sun was shining all
day; the marquees were filled with people dressed in blazers and boaters,
getting into the English spirit; and there were times in the late afternoon
when it really felt and sounded like a corner of England. You don’t forget days
like that.
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