LCS Meeting Thursday 1st February Simon Lister Simon said, HONESTLY! these are the last four hardback copies of his book, that he had left. Howard managing to make Simon smile with his introduction. Telling us that you could get three books for £1, from the book stall tonight. Simon said he couldn’t compete by selling his book for a pound. In Howards introduction, he told the 130 plus people attending our penultimate meeting of this winter, that not only was Simon an author and journalist, writing in several of the heavier weight newspapers, but also a senior BBC news producer, working on the six o’clock news. You could tell he was with the BBC, he used a lot of big words, and I’m still looking through my dictionary! This was probably one of the most powerful talks ever given to our society Simon started his talk by telling us that his boyhood hero was, Clive Radley, who Simon called the, Norfolk nerddeler, and reading us a poem that he had written, aged 7, when his church Sunday school ran a poetry competition, it went like this, “I dreamed I played for Middlesex and opened with Clive Radley I opened with him every day, and opened with him gladly He got 100 and so did I, but now I wonder why” Never before have you been able to read such prose in my report. He said that amazingly, he did not win, but 40 years later, he was just about over it. During his introduction, Howard said that some members had asked if the society could organise another trip. With this in mind, it was decided to contact the Oval for details; the cost of the Oval tour is £15, with a minimum number of 15 people required before they would accept us. The cost of hiring a sixteen seater coach is £460, meaning the cost would work out at about £46 per person. Howard said that the days of us organising a £20 trip are long gone. Unsurprisingly no-one was interested in going. Simon has been a Middlesex follower from about the age of 7, not too bad, watching your favourite side playing home games at Lords. we had another good turnout of members and guests for our last but one meeting of another winter The main part of Simon’s talk was from 1976, when he said that his real connection with “Fire in Babylon” began. Simon told the audience, that Caribbean people arriving in this country in 1976, still had a lot of racial problems to deal with, and that the rise of the fortunes of the WINDIES cricket team gave all of the people a lift. This was a very strong address, given to our society, which highlighted the amount of discrimination, there was still to be found in England in the mid-seventies. Simon talked about the players who went before, the big names in Caribbean cricket that we all think of, the likes of Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Gary Sobers, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and the rest, who brought about the world beaters of the late 70’s and 80’s. On Thursday night the book stall had a 3 books for a pound offer Angie and Jean do a good job running the book stall and put a lot of money back into the society. a big selection of cricket books for members to grab a bargain With such a very tough subject matter from Simon’s talk it’s very hard to pick out items in isolation which reflect the passion and feeling Simon put into his dialogue The lads in cow corner had another raffle prize winner in their midst at this meeting. while I’m talking about the front row lads, I owe an apology to this gentleman, in last month’s report, I called him “Jeff” it should have been JIM, but both Peter and Alan said that from now on they were going to call Jim, Jeff, if you see what I mean. The raffle this month raised another £93 for the funds, and yes this time someone did pick up the rubber mallet For this meeting Janet and Phil were back from holiday, so they were quickly drafted back into the fold, also my thanks to Bob. Without all your help and assistance, I would never manage to cover getting everyone’s money off them in time. Just recently one of our members, Mike, has written a couple of letters to the Mercury, praising the efforts of the Cricket Society, telling all their readers about the society and what good meetings they are. Mike has also been kind enough to write thanks and appreciation of the LCS committee, saying how well the society is run. On behalf of the other committee members, many thanks Mike. We could not buy this kind of publicity in the local paper. Angie telling me to be quite, as the Q&A had started, and I was still talking to the front row lads. Simon talked a lot about Clive Lloyd, who he interviewed at length when gathering the information to write his book. Simon answered a lot of questions about his book and about West Indies cricket. One member asked of Simon, did he think that the WINDIES, would ever regain the force that they once were; in short Simon said he thought not. Our next meeting is on Thursday 15th March. When newly retired ex ECB first class umpire Steve Garratt, will be our guest speaker. Please tell all your friends that this is the last meeting, until we start again in October, we would love to see our entire membership here for this season’s finale. Phil Veasey On behalf of the LCS committee. If you’ve enjoyed the winter in the company of friends and everyone you’ve got into conversation with, then please tell everyone that you know, to spread the word, what a good night out you have listening to lots of different speakers at the LCS. We have lots of room for new members. .