Tag Archives: names

Hector Fyvie’s ‘English Team’

Posted on by

West Indies cricket. Wow!

They would play England and thrash them at their own game. We would listen to the games, ears glued to the steam-powered radio.

Representing England you had names like Hicks, Lamb, Greig and Smith who sound OK, except they were all born in South Africa. Then you had Tavare, de Freitas, Ramprakash, D’Oliviera and Hussain. All Englishmen.

In the other team you had posh and correct names like Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Wesley Hall, Charlie Griffith, Sir Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft, Malcolm Marshal, Courtney Walsh, Sir Curtly Ambrose and Ian Bishop.

So Uncle Hec – always quick to spot an anomaly – would refer to them as . . .

“The English Team”.

Hecs Windies Cricket Team

Cannot be

Posted on by

When I was around six years old Sheila came marching up to me and demanded: –

“Do you know what Dad’s name is?”

Well, of course I did! I was the older brother.

Kleinspan Skool Koos Sheila.jpg

It’s “Dad”

“No man, his real name!”

What did she mean? Oh, of course – I’d heard Mom call him that lots of times.

“Peter”

“No. It’s PIETER GERHARDUS!!”

What rubbish! I’d never heard such foul language! And this from my MUCH younger sister! She was a whole year younger’n me. Which was like: All of living memory!

Amazingly, investigation and enquiry proved her right!

~~~oo0oo~~~

(this snippet had an interesting sort-of replay years later)