Sally Allen: Blowers - a man for all seasons

Well ‘My Dear Old Things’, I have just said farewell to the quite wonderful Henry Calthorpe Blofeld OBE and his delightful wife Valeria, who have been staying with us for four days.

I have known Henry since the late 1980s and time spent in his company is never less than a joy.

Once a boyfriend, he is now a highly valued friend and confident.

I was speaking to another old friend of mine about Henry, or Blowers to give him his rightful sobriquet, and he immediately said: “Blowers, a wonderful man. He is the essence of the best of Englishness.”

Blowers is obviously known as the voice of cricket from his 40 years as a regular on Test Match Special.

He created a following unheard of in cricket by engaging with an audience previously impervious to the game of cricket.

Blowers had the talent to make pigeons and buses sound interesting and fun during his idiosyncratic commentary.

He made everything fun and as a radio broadcaster managed to create a truly colourful picture in our minds – particularly if rain had stopped play.

Personally, I don’t think it is the same anymore as most commentary sounds bland to me.

I so miss the colourful descriptions of play and the surroundings, but most of all I miss Blowers’ wonderful distinctive and mellifluous voice.

In my days of working with the ECB, MCC, press and sponsors, I was constantly dropping into the TMS broadcasting box and it was always enormous fun.

The commentators in those days were all characters in their own way - Brian Johnston (Johnners), John Arlott (Arlo), Christopher Martin-Jenkins (CMJ) Fred Truman (Fiery Fred), Trevor Baily (Boil), David Lloyd (Bumble) Jonathan Agnew (Aggers) and scorer Bill Frindal (the Bearded Wonder) and their lovely producer Peter Baxter.

There were obviously many more commentators but I can’t name them all here.

However, if you Google the most popular during this purple patch of sports broadcasting it is Blowers who comes out as the people’s favourite.

Broadcasting is merely one of his talents, he is a wonderful wordsmith and has written well over 20 books and I have always enjoyed his hilarious after dinner speaking.

Blowers is now also known for his appearance in The Real Marigold Hotel series, where his good humour and sense of fun was very clearly on show.

Currently, as some of you will know, Henry now tours the theatres across the UK with his one-man show, which I promise you is a must see, even if you are not a cricket fan.

Once the dates of his stay with us were confirmed, I told Jim Parker, our eminent editor and cricket enthusiast (putting it mildly) and invited him to dinner to meet the man in question.

We had a fun dinner last Wednesday evening where Jim and Blowers bonded and much chat was exchanged and jokes told.

Great craic all round and a very late night for me with finishing dinner around 1am.

It reminded me of the good old days when staying up late was de rigueur, sadly now it is very much the exception!

The following night, a group of us went to see Henry’s show at the Palace Theatre in Paignton.

The first half was dedicated to his experience filming The Real Marigold Hotel. It was so amusing. His humorous and sometimes acerbic wit when describing situations and the antics of his co-stars was hilarious.

During filming, he formed a close friendship with Dame Zandra Rhodes and I am lucky enough to be having dinner with them both and Valeria in London next month.

I have a couple of Zandra’s dresses and, in my opinion, she is the most iconic of all fashion designers. Just fabulous.

The second half of Blowers’ show was dedicated to the wonders of TMS and the great Arlott and Johnston and the hilarious 'leg-over' moment between Johnners and Aggers when they both collapsed into hysterics and couldn’t speak.

Wonderful memories and moments and all of them presented to us with huge humour by the incomparable Blowers.

Thank you so very much My Dear Old Thing.