| Saturdays were important
to me. On behalf of BBC Radio Derby, I travelled not quite the length -
but definitely the breadth of England reporting on football matches. I
enjoyed it. It brought a breath of fresh air, chilblains and the prospect
of pneumonia into my life.
In the morning, I cooked and cleaned and flew around the Matlock shops ticking-off items from Diana's list. I was becoming a superb shopper and a first-rate wire basket handler. I could now ask for 'Ten Tampax Super, please,' without stammering, and discuss intelligently the merits of Comfort fabric conditioner with any like-minded housewife. By eleven in the morning, I would have a cold lunch for Diana hermetically sealed in clingfilm and placed on her bedside table along with fresh fruit and orange juice. Then we would have a coffee together before I plastered my limbs in thermal underwear and set forth in search of some far-off press box - set in a distant football ground. That little dot which jumps up and down in an excited frenzy whilst printing out the football results on television would be flexing his muscles in readiness, determined to spell Hartlepool correctly this week, as I pulled into the fair city of Liverpool. Already, the Everton coaches blue and white scarves streaming from the windows, would be nosing into Newcastle, and here at home some forty-thousand Liverpool fans marched on Anfield - a red and white army charged with enthusiasm and best bitter. |
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