I’m in the mood for a bit of nostalgia. Dad going in for his hip replacement operation today has made me reflect upon the rapid passage of time. I swear I was at high school last year. It seems like it to me, and yet I am mortified to discover that it’s approaching nineteen years since I left! I want my life back!!!
If you look at opening ceremonies for things like cricket, football and I guess the ultimate show in the world, the Olympic games, you begin to realise just how slick and glitzy and gosh darned expensive everything is. And although it looks great you find yourself looking back on it and thinking, what was the point of all that? Why not just start the games/tournament/competition and save yourself a shed load of cash? I know the last cricket world cup thingy in England was a bit of a damp squib – literally – as Alesha Dixon stood in the wings waiting to perform on a waterlogged stage, but do we really need vocalists heralding the beginning of a contest that basically has, to coin a phrase, bog all to do with singing? Unless of course we have plans for Graham Swann and Mark Butcher to enter Eurovision next year...
This is why I find myself remembering with great fondness my participation in the opening ceremony of the 1986 Commonwealth games. It looked naff then, and time has not really helped it in this respect. No pyrotechnics. No fancy gizmos. Just 5000 kids in multi coloured tracksuits, David Coleman, 3 guys in a Nessie outfit and a whole lot of doves making a giant mess of the track. My sister was in the dancing troupe and had the ignominy of wearing a yellow and turquoise baby grow.
But for all that, naff isn’t necessarily bad. For today’s young generation of twentysomethings it probably looks diabolical, but at the end of the day you can’t put a price on the happy memories of childhood. The fact that I can actually tell you which little blue blob I was on the screen indicates what a great time it was. I still have my Commonwealth Games tracksuit and trainers stored away in a bag in the attic, and although the experience didn’t provide me with any useful life skills I can honestly say that I march, wave my arms and star jump with the best of them.
You see, I belong to the generation that grew up in the seventies and eighties. ‘Jamie and the Magic Torch', ‘Chorlton and the Wheelies’, ‘The Clangers’ and 'Bod' were the mainstays of our televisual viewing. When I got older I borrowed my sister’s cerise ‘Fame' style leggings, I had Duran Duran posters on my bedroom wall and we got our thrills from ‘Jossy’s Giants’ and watching Philip Schofield and Gordon the Gopher larking around in the broom cupboard. I cheered Stefan Edberg on each year at Wimbledon whilst wondering why footballer’s hair had got bigger but their shorts had become, er... shorter!
This is partly why I enjoy seeing the elder statesmen of cricket hanging around the game: your fortysomethings like Udal, Ramps and Croft, your thirtysomethings like Jon Batty. It reassures me that for as long as they are around, I’m not alone after all!
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