It was at an invitational cricket carnival that these words were uttered to me and although I knew Sam was the guest of honour, it hadn't entered my head that I'd be given an opportunity to meet him personally. Upon being introduced it was clear that the elderly man had lost most of his sight and hearing and although he still cut a strong figure, frailty was obviously a concern. But I could tell by the animated way he held and fumbled through his worn manilla folder full of old scraps of letters, scoresheets, and black and white photos that this was a man not living in regret of a body that was failing him, but rather reveling in the telling of the stories of his youth. At one stage he turned to me and asked if I would read him a letter written to him in 1954 by a very firm friend. Although I cannot remember it verbatim, it read a little like this;
"Dear Sam. Good luck on your upcoming match with New South Wales, I know how dearly you would love for Victoria to win the Shield on your home ground. I must say that in all my time playing cricket, I never felt at ease at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The wicket plays decidedly slow and I always have trouble when trying to drive early in an innings. I hope you have better success than I and wish you the best in the upcoming match. Your friend, Don".
With a cheeky smile forming in his mouth as I incredulously read the words aloud, Sam asked me to turn the letter over. Before I could read what Sam had scribbled on the back, he spoke that which was written there to me from his own memory. "Don Bradman played 11 tests at the MCG with a batting average of 130! He made nine hundreds there me boy, and he wants to try to tell us he was ill at ease? I'd hate to think how he'd go if he felt comfortable; that's what you call a cricketer!".
In the ensuing hour the enormity of what I was experiencing was dawning on me; this man and the stories he told WAS cricket in the 1940's and 50's. Each story was just as fascinating as the last and many are now committed to my memory not to be forgotten. I was grateful he was unable to hear those trying to interrupt him with their own anecdotes or questions that betrayed just how little they understood of what this wonderful old man was trying to tell them. "Would you please be quiet?" I thought to myself as I strained to listen to Sam, "I could sit and listen to this man talk all day and not dare open my mouth for fear of interrupting or missing something interesting he might say".
The man was Sam Loxton, one of Bradman's "invincibles". However this was not the first time I'd felt about someone this way. I'd already had the pleasure of meeting someone every bit as remarkable, and I didn't have to concern myself with missing out on any of her stories...
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I had been dating my then girlfriend Kristel for nearly three years when she turned 21, and a party was thrown where I felt the slightest bit uneasy at not knowing her friends as well as I do now. Coupled with the fatigue that came with playing a pre-season game of football in still very summer like Australian heat that afternoon, it was ensured that it would be a quiet celebration for me. I did manage come speech time to tell everyone how proud I was of her for (or despite) setting an Australian record for the quickest time from getting a provisional license to having an accident* but the best stories did not come from the guests, nor were they delivered during the speeches. They were told to two most unsuspecting guests who were transfixed upon every word this incredible lady had to say. My news to dad that the footy club had seemingly signed a star player soon became trivial compared to what Grandma Hilda had to say when introduced to her. Football was slightly less important than the events that followed in Britain following the invasion of Poland by the Germans in 1939.
We were told of how gas masks became standard issue in England that year, the request from the Government being that practice of their use was to be maintained regularly for if they should ever urgently be needed. There were Mickey Mouse themed ones for small children, and there were large box shaped ones for small babies in which the entire infant was to fit inside.
She told us of the Battle of Britain, the very real air fights to her (and very surreal to us) where the planes could be quite high to the point where you couldn't tell which ones were "ours" and which ones were a "blooming Gerry", and when one exploded in mid-air Hilda always gave a sigh of relief to see a parachute open.
We were told of the bomb that demolished three large houses around the corner from Church Road in Kent where she lived, the trees of her family's back yard covered with curtains and clothing and debris from these houses, the doors and windows of their own home shattered by the reverberations from the impact and most scarily of all, the realisation dawning that a direct hit on their house proper would render their underground shelter utterly useless. They would not be safe.
She told us of how she was conscripted into the Royal Navy. Just think about that sentence for a moment; she was conscripted into the Royal Navy. She didn't choose it, she was made to. Later, she was also made to travel to Australia with them, a voyage she had no desire of making but one that would shape her life when she met her future husband Bill. It's astonishing stuff, a story that belongs in our distant past but can live in our closest relatives.
It was at this time I started thinking about just how good I had it living in a country that had never experienced, just how exactly comfortable my soft little life was compared to hers at the same age.
It was then that Hilda told the story that remains entrenched in my mind and I daresay will for all time. Attending the cinema with her father at the height of the war, while the film was showing a notice appeared on the screen; "The Air Raid Warning has sounded. The performance will continue". Apparently this was a normal enough procedure until moments later it was replaced with "The Immediate Danger is sounding, the performance will continue". Not long after that there was an explosion that shook the building. Hilda said to her father "Come on dad, let's go!" to which he replied "sit tight gal, if it's got your name on it you'll get it no matter where you are. You're just as likely to walk into the flippin' thing".
I think it was at this time Hilda had been talking for two hours non stop to which she suggested we must have been getting tired of hearing her talk. "Not at all" was my dad's reply "I could happily listen to what you have to say all night my dear but tell me if I can be so rude, how old are you?"
"Why I'm 82 years old" came the reply to which my father remarked "no you're not, you're 82 years young". And he was right. Hilda beamed a smile to us, one she had been wearing for most of the night, and one that was very familiar to me because it was one that lit up the room, and it's one I'm lucky enough to see every day.
It was there beaming at me on my wedding night when dad in his duties as MC naturally related my marriage to Kristel being like a partnership in cricket. When one partner is freely scoring and batting well they have to support the other who may be having a tougher time of it. Alternatively, the partner who is struggling must try to hang in there for their partner who is putting the runs on the board. "And Mark," he boomed, "you had best be ready to struggle mate because I can tell you Kristel is going to be scoring most of the runs in your partnership".
Bloody fathers. Little were we to know that that one small analogy was to unearth another of Hilda's gems. A couple of hours later dad came to me with that incredulous look on his face, the one he gives when you can tell somebody had told him something truly astonishing and sure enough, Hilda had. The cinema was not the only place Hilda's father ever took her, he took her to the Oval in 1948 to watch the final test of that Ashes series. The final test of a certain Don Bradman. Hilda knew we were cricket tragics in the White family, indeed one of the first times I met her was in her Strathfield family home when she was perched in front of the TV as Australia were giving England their routine beating and me an opportunity for some routine lip service. Still, she hid this little gem from us for seven years and upon reflection, my best guess is because it was only another moment in Hilda's life. Family and friends were far more important things besides, and she failed even to give this story any mention in the little autobiography she wrote that helped jog my memory of her stories of the war and time in the navy.
Unfortunately, like bombs dropped from a German aircraft, cancer does not discriminate who it chooses to strike and as your life goes on, greater is the chance you will develop it. The diagnosis for Hilda could not have been more than five months ago but it was terminal news. So it was that Hilda Forbes, nee Gutteridge, passed away this weekend after an illness so vile it could suck the life and energy out of such a wonderful person so full of these qualities. But what it could not do is suck the life out of those that loved her. Long is the drive from Henty to Bathurst yet grateful are Kristel and I that we were able to make it to visit her on a couple of occasions before the inevitable happened and the sad phone call came. Hilda's legacy surrounded her in her death however; not in a hospice or hostel or palliative care centre, but in the unit made for her by her loving daughter Jo (one of Hilda's five children born within the space of four years!) and surrounded by her doting family where they denied this despicable disease its victory. They were there until the end, holding her hand, kissing her forehead and making sure she was as loved as she had ever loved them.
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| Hilda Gutteridge and Kristel White, 1998ish, all smiles as usual. |
At the end of the evening, knowing the odds were quite small, I asked Hilda if indeed she really did support good ol' Pompey and the answer she gave will never leave me.
"Well maybe I do, and maybe I don't. The most important thing is that I will support any small thing that will make somebody happy".
To say a nice word, in order to make someone happy, whenever it is possible. That is how I will remember Hilda Gutteridge, that is her legacy. Maybe it's time I set out about making it mine. Maybe we all should too.
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* Hilda would be frowning upon me right now if I didn't tell a story to bring a laugh. The Australian record for crashing a car after obtaining your provisional driver's licence is held by Kristel White and stands at 2 minutes 32 seconds. It was managed after she drove to my house, excitedly told me the news and in a rush to hurry off and tell her other friends, reversed my car out of the driveway, hit a stationary post, and ripped the entire front end off the car. When pressed on how she felt about the record, a tearful Kristel exclaimed "I'll understand if you want to dump meeeeeeeee..."
There was never a chance of that happening baby. After all, you have your grandmother's smile. :)
