Listening to TMS which for so long meant listening to CMJ has been a pleasure. Whether in the back garden or on the Continent CMJ on TMS has been a constant more reminiscent of a Goliath than a David.
For decades I've tuned in to CMJ on Long Wave and was inspired to write a book recording my efforts to keep up with the Cricket between Shipping Forecasts while on holiday in France and Spain.'French and Spanish Cricket for Beginners' may not be everyone's cup of tea and toast with its irreverential flavour and curate's egg variability in taste, but it stemmed from my appreciation of CMJ et al.
I can't think of many radio programmes that act as the perfect backdrop to driving close to Sheer Khan cliffs with breathtaking views, through signal stealing gorges and wicket taking tunnels where the lovely lady riding shotgun is roused from her slumbers by shouts of 'Short' or 'Yorker. Bowls him'.
What other broadcast can have its transmission impeded by her Continentally interfered travelling companion of fellow Long Suffering Waves to have 'Here Comes Pollock' misinterpreted as 'Here comes Bollocks' explained to my eternal shame as 'It's just an introduction to A View from the Boundary'?
I know it's not the end of TMS but as with the passing of John Arlott and Brian Johnston you do begin to worry that another important brick in that boundary wall has gone, and we all know that boundaries can lead to disputes between the closest of neighbours. The polarisation of views can blind reasonable people into actions unbecoming of them freezing out those who do not wish to take part in or listen to a Radio 5 style phone-in rant.
Simom Barnes said it all much better in 'The Times' on Wednesday. He knew that he was privileged to have known CMJ well and knew him to be one in a million. I feel privileged too to have had one of those 'million radios' from which classical bowling actions (pictured) were described so classically 'with a voice brimming with love'.
Though not the paper's Correspondent CMJ was nonetheless The Guardian of TMS. Aggers is there to hold the fort and long may he continue so that I can listen via whatever form of technology ticks the boxes that good old fashioned CMJ and Long Wave did for all those years.
