He was a lovely man and a gentle soul…we will all miss him terribly
View(s):By David Lloyd
I first worked with CMJ on Test Match Special in 1990. He was a terrific colleague and a good friend.
And for someone like me, learning the ropes as a summariser, he was the perfect on-air companion, always putting you at ease.
My fellow summarisers at the time were Trevor Bailey and Fred Trueman, and I remember sitting at the back of the box when CMJ was on once with Fred.
CMJ asked him what title he would give to his autobiography, and Fred replied: ‘T’fastest bowler who ever drew breath.’
CMJ was having none of it. ‘Now I’m not sure that’s quite true, Fred,’ he said. ‘I hear that Hereward the Wake was quite pacy back in the 11th century.’ There was an indignant grunt. ‘I don’t know who he is,’ said Fred. ‘But he wasn’t as fast as me.’
Apart from being a consummate pro, CMJ was best known in the TMS box for being late — and always with a cast-iron excuse of some kind.
In fact, he was endearingly error-prone in general. There was the time he tried to make a phone call through to his office back in London using the TV remote control from his hotel room.
And I still chuckle at the thought of him snipping through the earphones of his Walkman while he was cutting and pasting some articles into a scrapbook and being unable to work out why he could no longer hear Mendelssohn.
I once played golf with him and Mike Selvey in Queenstown, Otago in New Zealand.
CMJ confused Bob Charles, New Zealand’s most famous golfer and the designer of the course, with Ray Charles, the soul musician. ‘Yes,’ said Selvey. ‘I hear there are one or two blind holes.’
‘I do believe there are,’ said CMJ, none the wiser.
He was a lovely man and a gentle soul… we will all miss him terribly.
© Daily Mail, UK
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