Can Anyone Hear Me? Read Free

‘Cock of the North’ (as he liked to describe his position as North of England outside broadcasts producer in the BBC’s Manchester office) had been the BBC’s man on the tour. He was not officially the cricket correspondent, but, since Christopher Martin-Jenkins had left to edit the
Cricketer
magazine, he had fulfilled much of that role.
    A Yorkshireman, Don had come to the BBC in the sixties from being the northern cricket correspondent of the
Daily Mail
. He had been on the staff for ten years when he at last got the chance to join the commentary team on
Test Match Special
. His bombast meant that on the whole hisLondon-based colleagues would avoid trespassing on ‘his patch’ as much as possible, a state of affairs which suited Don, who professed a disdain of ‘southern softies’ in general and, as I was to find to my cost, public school educated ones in particular. A journalist of the old school, he relished the English language, a trait that was to manifest itself when I got him to do close-of-play summaries, which he accomplished brilliantly. For all his grumbling, he also relished touring.
    When the Guyanese government refused to allow Jackman to play in their country in 1981 because of those South African connections, and with England stating their position as ‘accept the team as a whole or we don’t take part’, Mosey found himself in the most difficult part of the Caribbean for communications, making his coverage of the unfolding news story difficult.
    That eased with the move to Barbados, after the Jackman furore had caused cancellation of the second Test, but then came another incident – the sudden death of the team’s coach, Ken Barrington, in the middle of a Test match. At the same time, rumours abounded about the captain, Botham’s, extra-curricular activities.
    In London the BBC radio newsroom were not overjoyed with Don’s coverage. Some of the problems, like the difficulties of getting through to London from Guyana, were of course not his fault. But in the case of Barrington’s death, they felt that he should have tipped them off as a warning, even with an embargo, instead of waiting until he was sure the family had been told before he made contact. That approach meant that he was not the first to tell them. When they rang him up to let him know the rumour of the death and he said casually that he already knew, they were not pleased.
    TheWest Indies tour was followed by a sensational Ashes series in England, when Mike Brearley was recalled to the colours to inspire England and their hero, Botham, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
    With cricket such hot news, when the head of Radio Sport announced that Mosey would be our man covering the winter’s tour of India, the news department expressed their concern and began to consider sending a reporter of their own.
    It was the sports editor, Iain Thomas, who came up with a solution. Peter Baxter could go to India to take the news reports off Don’s hands and also relieve Don of the worry of getting
Test Match Special
on the air. The newsroom were happy with that and Don only heard the latter part of the arrangement and probably reckoned he’d been given a bag-carrier. He was content at least for me to do all the player interviews, though he sneered at the modern thirst for them. The only exception to this was Geoffrey Boycott, whom Don insisted on interviewing himself, claiming that Boycott would only talk to him.
    There had to be some matrimonial consultation before I accepted the invitation to tour, but in early November 1981 I embarked on an Air India jumbo to Bombay. Sitting next to a charming Indian doctor from New York, I received a few tips about India during the journey, one of the most useful of which was that women would always be more helpful than men if you had a problem there.
    Communications were my major concern, but in those darker days there was less pressure of