Women in white

Just about the most warming, sun-beaming day of this monsoon summer was spent in a cuddly western nook of the Malvern Hills at blissful Colwall, watching a languid few hours’ play of a Minor Counties match between Herefordshire and Devon. President of the Devon club is venerable dumpling David Shepherd, not long retired as all cricket’s finest umpire. Roly-poly Shep still terribly misses life in the middle. No wonder — up to last year when, at 65, he had to hand in his white coat, he’d been up early and expectant and ‘gone to the cricket’ for almost half a century, first as a stalwart county pro, then as everybody’s favourite fair and fearless international adjudicator. We sat on a bench in the sun, two old codgers chewing the cud — me entranced as ever at his sense and wisdom; well, at cricket, Shep has seen (and done) it all in 22-yard close-up.