David Charters: An inner sense advises us that something is going to be romantic

Jul 8 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

YOU know, these days, the most under-rated quality in the world is romance. Its slow going is felt by us in so many ways.

In the webbed memory, smoked in an old briar pipe and hung in the mind, you have the picture of the cricket team’s 12th man, seen on the sign outside village pubs, where he sits, bewhiskered, in his striped cap and whites, supping warm beer and wondering whether an injury, or the late arrival of another, will lead to him being called back to that green – around which you can hear the gentle murmurings of appreciation, as the sun glistens on the black and white scoreboard.

All these pictures of an England, which belongs to a different time but refuses to disappear, returned to me when our son said that he had been picked as 12th man in his club’s Under-13s team.

He reported for duty at the pavilion on the Sunday, hauling his bag to the appointed place under the old clock. Minor changes to the personnel led to his services being immediately required. And, in the true spirit of the 12th man, he found himself fielding near the boundary, under the shelter of the great trees, whose drooping leaves shuddered in the breeze.

The bowler adjusted his field settings with those familiar hand gestures – out a bit, square-leg; in a bit, silly mid-on. He was a general positioning his troops for battle. The small clusters of spectators raised their collars and eyed the darkening sky. Eventually, he bowled. The batsman hit the ball hard. Our boy advanced to stop it. The ball hit a bump and rose fast, striking him on the forehead. He cupped his hands against his face. Everyone gathered round. “Are you all right?” they asked as one, genuinely concerned.

The kind woman in the pavilion applied a bag of ice cubes to his head, which also paraded the fading bruise from another incident, in which he had engaged a wall in an unequal collision while pogo-sticking.

His reappearance on the pitch was greeted with light applause and nods of approval. By then, the rain was falling with a determination, which drew meteorological observations from the old-timers in gnarled attendance behind the boundary markers.

“On for the day,” said one, whose ancient mongrel sagged in sympathy.

“Just a shower,” volunteered another with the optimism which would, in an earlier age, have persuaded him to trot gamely towards the heavily defended trenches of the enemy.

A third opinion came from a middle-aged chap, who recalled that, in his boyhood, such had been the enthusiasm of his fellows for the game, that nothing would have prevented them playing.

“That match was completed with the aid of snorkels,” I muttered to myself, peevishly. In the end, this match was abandoned after the first innings.

To me, the scene symbolised the romance of an old England, which refuses to die. It stands defiantly against the trends of the modern age – the instant gratification, shops, jet travel and the sun shining on faraway beaches.

We now confuse sex and pleasure with romance. But they are very different. One dwells with us, the other passes. As I write this column now, in my armchair at home, I can see morning rise in soft and clouded shades over the white-washed houses across the road. The scene is filled with romance, that strange tingling felt in each person.

A year ago, I talked to an old priest, a man of distinction and deep intellect, who had overseen the construction of two grand cathedrals. He was talking freely in his room, aware that his time was slipping. Soon he would offer his passion to the sky. What had attracted him to the priesthood with its sacrifices and stone-chilled denials, I asked.

Well, as a boy he had attended a class addressed by a monk with an immense black beard and rare conviction in his mellow voice, who spoke of God and Jesus. “He was such a romantic figure,” said the dying priest. The romance in another man’s words had lived with him through the years.

I like the romance of the dark – a match struck on a wall at night, glowing lamps and the fog outside a picture-palace. But also, in the naked light, I see a bounding puppy, shaking his wet and sandy coat on the promenade at the seaside.

These and so many more sounds and images hang in the mind. An inner sense advises us that something is going to be romantic. We all experience millions of happenings, with their moods and changes. But, every now and again, one comes along and you know it must be carried carefully into the memory, to be opened again on slippered evenings. That is romance.