V&A Cricket Club Dinner, Leander Club, March 30 2019

Our 45th Annual Dinner passed without serious incident which is a bonus. The food was entirely adequate and the wine only ran out at the end. I am a quantity rather than quality man so it suited me that it kept coming. There is a saying that less is more but it is bollocks, less is not enough. Leander Club, N. Bird pointed out in his address, is a rowing club in case there was doubt. The evidence was oars all over the walls, boats in the yard and photos of butch rowers on the stairs. At my school rowing was the option for those couldn’t bat for toffee, but I wouldn’t say that out loud at Leander.

The venue may have involved a trek for metropolitans but local accommodation was provided, some staying at my family house at Turville Heath. They did not trash the place, despite Mounsey-Thear turning up at 3 am after clubbing in Henley with our yoof element. You have to admire his stamina. I spoke with him, sort of, at 11.00 pm and he was only fit for jim-jams and Bedfordshire but this old trouper hit the town. What the town made of him heaven knows.

According to the Daily Telegraph the awards were presented by Christiaan Jonkers and Lady Dowding. This was a minor inaccuracy as Lady Dowding was in France. Someone asked me whether our President and Vice Presidents know their status at our esteemed club. In other words, have I actually invited them? The answer is YES and I have their charming acknowledgements; all except Keith Miller (dead) and Lady Dowding herself. Although she exists she doesn’t know the V&A CC does. We have had three VPs fall off their perch recently (Count Schouvaloff, my father, Sir Alistair Horne); Nick P-G suggested a Mrs May, MP for Maidenhead, as a replacement – she needs the prestige.

The AWARDS (a huge solid silver cup) were deserved although how Ross Ashcroft didn’t get one for his two centuries mystified some. Mounsey-Thear just edged it on his average. Ross pointed out that we made a serious diplomatic boo-boo in not proposing the toast to the Tea Ladies: Megan, Jane, Lucinda, Sarah, Kitty, Steph, Estelle, Eve, Cathy – and Rupert, Nick P-G, Phil, myself and other Hon Tea Ladies. Without the culinary heights that the ladies in particular reach we would have no club because the cricket is secondary.

The Treasurer reported we were solvent(ish) and the Fixtures Sec said we had more fixtures this year than ever, with several double-headers. Some oppositions have been dropped because they were inquorate or rude. We may be rude but we are rarely these days inquorate. The V&A Tour this year has been postponed to next year.

After dinner, many of us toddled down to the river, there to smoke, sip cognac (or gulp in M-T’s case) and look at the lights on the water. All a far cry from Corbyn and May. Brexit was forgotten, all was harmony; until someone mentioned John Bercow, a man who struts sitting down, and the mood soured. If Bercow is elevated to the Lords, I for one will not accept a Peerage.