Wednesday, July 14, 2021

AN ENGLISH SUMMER


 

Our Continental and American cousins frequently deride the “English summer” and this year I must concede that it has been particularly dismal. It has rained with monotonous regularity throughout May, June and July, and if you are not wet, you are unseasonably cold, crabbed, cabined and confined.  Cavorting in the bracing sea, tanning on the sandy beach or eating deliciously alfresco have been rare, much-desired pleasures.

 

                    


                                                                A typical wet Summer scene 

Yet there are compensations. Driven indoors, we have revelled in TV sport. Roland Garros, Eastbourne, Queens Club and Wimbledon have given us ample opportunities to follow our ephemeral tennis favourites – Stephanos Tsitsipas, Cam Norrie, Matteo Berrettini in our household and the only occasionally admirable Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka. A feast indeed, and so many stirring memories of Jaroslav Drobny captivating us in 1954, of the epic battles of Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall in the 1950s and the long dominance of Rod Laver, followed by the era of Borg and brat McEnroe (You can’t be serious!) - now a sage white-haired pundit. The ladies had Little Mo, Maureen Connolly, winning everything in the early 1950s while British hopes often rested on chubby, smiling Christine Truman evoking Betjeman’s famous poem:

Miss J Hunter Dunn, Miss J Hunter Dunn

Furnish’d and burnish’d by Aldershot sun,

What strenuous singles we played after tea,

We in the tournament – you against me.

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,

The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy…

The tennis was closely followed by the Euros football, which brought moments of joy but ultimately despair to the English fans. Yet the truth is that the Italians were the better side and Southgate made a bad mistake asking last minute subs Rashford, Sancho and Saka to take crucial penalties. After the game, recriminations have bubbled up into racial discord, a sad and unnecessary outcome. We now move on to The Open golf, the Lions in South Africa (how much we still miss the darting brilliance of Joost van der Westhuizen), cricket in a bewildering variety of formats, ushering in the Tokyo Olympics (with no spectators). Let’s hope there will be plenty to cheer us up!

Lockdown is gradually easing up amid much dithering by our government and a Cassandra’s chorus from “the experts” prophesying doom, aided and abetted by the ever-sensationalist media. People of my generation (the 70s +) rather like Lockdown, as we have been terrorized into seeking security at any cost. Frankly, restrictions on our movements are no great imposition as we are no longer up for exploring the Wookey Hole caves, trekking along the Great Wall of China, ascending to the heights of Manchu Picchu, Bungy jumping in New Zealand or mooning around the Taj Mahal. For me, a leisurely stroll down the Leas at Folkestone is plenty excitement, as a recent fall saw me break a front tooth and painfully injure my ribs, so I shuffle about with a stick, groaning like some old codger. Yet my spirits remain high, full of optimism and warm goodwill to my fellow men. Carpe diem!

 

SMD

14.07.21

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2021

 

 

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