As South Africa got off to a flyer at The Oval thoughts in the press boxturned to absent friends
Roving Reporter: Steven Lynch at The Oval04-Sep-2003
Peter West: died on Tuesday aged 83
As South Africa got off to a flyer at The Oval thoughts in the press boxturned to absent friends. Peter West, who died earlier this week, didsome of his best work in the BBC’s box in the days when it wasprecariously perched on top of the pavilion here. With a seeminglypermanent smile, and a nearly ever-present pipe, West alwaysseemed so at home in front of the camera that it was a surprise tolearn that he was always asking colleagues how he was faring.David Frith, the founder editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly,recalled a slightly peeved West asking why his name had been left offthe caption for a magazine cover in the early ’80s that depicted IanBotham and Clive Lloyd. “All you could see was the back of Peter’shead. I suppose in a small way that backs up the stories about howinsecure he was.”Like many in the media, David Lloyd – the one from the EveningStandard not the ex-England-coach turned Sky pundit – remembersWest fondly. After he retired from the BBC, West fulfilled a long-heldambition by covering the 1986-87 England tour of Australia for theDaily Telegraph. “He was a lovely bloke,” said Lloyd. “That wasmy first tour too, so I remember it well. I’ve got lots of great memoriesfrom it – and Peter features in most of them. He was such a nice,genuine character.”That was a great tour from an England point of view – Mike Gatting’sside won the Ashes, and two one-day competitions to boot – but itwasn’t all fun for West off the field, however. I had a vague recollectionof his tour book, Clean Sweep, containing the odd pop at theTelegraph sports desk – but a quick re-read revealed almost dailyconflict, culminating in a therapeutic two-page letter (never actuallysent, which is often the best way) giving the then sports editor a blast.Edited highlights include: “I have received your latest letter and notedthat as seems to be customary you begin it with a complaint from areader … do you happen to realise that I have now been in Australia forseven weeks, filing every bloody day and never a day off, and, apartfrom sending congratulations on what you term my [Bill] Athey analysis,you have not yet been able to tell me that you have actually liked asingle thing I have written … I would ask you to remember that just anoccasional touch of the carrot can mean a lot.”There’s more – much more – in the same vein, which makes it ratheran unusual tour book. The desk’s daily demands must have clangedseveral bells with other journalists, and serves as a reminder of thosenot-terribly-distant days before e-mails and global-roaming phones,when overseas communication was by peremptory telex or a late-nightphone call (“Towards midnight, Sportsed calls from London. I amdisappointed to hear that he thinks Brisbane is eight hours ahead ofGMT, when in fact it is ten …”).In case you’re wondering, the cricket does get a look-in, with theoccasional shaft of West wisdom – such as this one, from the secondTest at Perth: “[Steve] Waugh finishes with 5 for 69 after bowlingunchanged for almost three hours. He looks an extremely promisingcricketer.” Waugh was still 30 months away from a Test century, butWest had the vertical hold on the old crystal-ball just right.Interestingly, the Telegraph‘s own obituary of West omits thattour book, although it does mention his autobiography and his book on Denis Compton. He also wrote two earlier tour books, but anyone might be forgiven for missing them – West’s 1986-87 tour account was more than 30 years after his previous effort, on Jim Laker’s triumphant Ashes series in 1956. My copy of that one bears the brief inscription “Salutations! Peter West”. And The Oval press box saluted him today.Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden CricInfo.Wisden Bulletin: Glorious Gibbs gives South Africa control