I look back at old photos of me with a shaved head and think, ‘I wish someone had said to me, “Look at the state of it, grow it back!”’ Actually, I do remember being on tour in New Zealand and sat on the back of the bus with my teammate Craig White, who had started losing his hair. He looked at me and said, ‘Fred, can I ask you a question? You’ve got beautiful hair. Why do you shave it all off?’ And I couldn’t answer him. But I felt a bit guilty, because I hadn’t realised how much hair meant to men who didn’t have it.
One thing I do look back on with slight embarrassment is my bling phase. At one point, I thought I was 50 Cent. I had a diamond in my ear, for God’s sake. And a big diamond wedding ring. I was dripping with bling. When I think about it now, it makes me shudder. I do still like to wear nice watches. I think that’s quite a middle-aged thing. Not that I’ve ever bought one, they’ve always been presents from my wife. Occasionally, I’ll visit a watch shop knowing exactly what watch I want to buy. But I always back out. I just can’t justify the expense. You can’t get a Rolex for much less than five grand. You can buy a decent second-hand car for that. And I’m an anxious shopper anyway. I walk in a shop feeling fine and suddenly I don’t want to be in there. I certainly don’t see shopping as a leisure activity. You’ll hear people talking about going shopping like it’s a hobby, as if they’re off for a round of golf. No. Not a chance. Shopping is not a hobby, it’s a slightly stressful necessity.
One of the biggest giveaways that you’re entering middle age is a sudden urge to live in the country, away from it all. When you’re young, you like to be in the middle of everything. You think you’re missing out if you’re not. But you reach a certain age when you realise you’re missing out on nothing, apart from noise, drunk people and bad bars. Don’t get me wrong, I loved living in Manchester city centre when I was younger. I had a flat that was right in among it and had a ball. It wasn’t great for my waistline and it probably ruined two or three years of my cricket career, but the freedom I had was amazing. I could drink into the early hours and order a pizza at 3am. What else does a man in his twenties want? You don’t get many men in their twenties pining for the countryside.
Since then, I’ve sampled a bit of everything. After I retired, me and the missus moved to Dubai for a couple of years. We’d been on holiday there and enjoyed it. I think I was running away a little bit and I quickly saw it for what it was, which was a pretty weird place. Once you’d sat on the beach for a couple of afternoons and done some shopping, there wasn’t much left to do. I spent a lot of time pining for England, I just missed home so much. And then we moved to Cobham in Surrey, which was lovely but a bit competitive for my liking. It was all about who had the most, the biggest, the best, the fastest. Although I was in a bad place at the time so it wasn’t a fair reflection.
Now, we’re back up north. At first, we went too countryside. That didn’t work because we were still too young. We’re now on the edge of a town in Cheshire, but I wouldn’t mind moving back to the country. I’m hoping I can convince the family because that suits me. I don’t really go out now, because I just want to be surrounded by my family and close friends. When you reach a certain age, you start thinking, ‘Why am I standing in this bar surrounded by people I don’t know when I could be sat at home with people I do?’
I love London but couldn’t deal with living there. It’s just so ridiculously busy all the time. At least it was before the pandemic. The Tube is one of the worst things in the world, especially during rush hour. Every time I get the Tube, I get off at the wrong stop. I find all those different lines so confusing. It’s pressure I don’t need in my life at my age. I also find the Tube quite intimidating. Everyone is just staring ahead of them, looking totally spaced out and angry. And London is maddeningly expensive. If I bought a flat down there, I’d spend the whole time really angry, wondering why I paid for two bedrooms in a concrete jungle when I could have got a five-bedroomed house with a big garden up north for the same money. Unless you absolutely have to live in London, it makes no sense.
If I had a magic wand, me, my family and close friends would all live in a little village in the countryside, that would be the perfect scenario. But, of course, I don’t own a magic wand and life is never perfect. Not that everything about living in the countryside is great. I’d love a view, of rolling hills and water. That would be magnificent. But maybe only for a few weeks. In the summer. Winter, not so much. There’s something very depressing about being in the middle of nowhere when driving rain is smashing against the windows. And if you lived by the sea, your cars would get damaged by the salt.
I find that I always want what I don’t have. A lot of people are like that. When I lived in the country, I always wanted to go for a walk and seek out a coffee. Now I don’t live in the country and have coffee shops just around the corner, I’d sooner put the kettle on and make a coffee myself. It’s the same with the quietness of the countryside, which is great at first, something you’ll keep commenting on: ‘Oh, it’s so lovely and peaceful out here.’ But that quietness can become quite oppressive after a while and you start missing the sound of cars and human interaction. And if you did live in a village with all your mates, someone would end up pissing everyone else off. Guaranteed. We’d end up having a big row in the local pub and having to evict them.
Another good thing about living in the middle of nowhere is that you don’t have to make any effort with your appearance. It’s happening anyway. I’m basically turning into the late Steve Irwin, who seemed to wear the same clothes every day. I don’t wear a beige shirt and shorts like Steve, but months slip past when I wear the same three pairs of jogging shorts and the same three black T-shirts. The only thing I switch up is my flat cap. I even started going out in tracksuits. Like Elton John.
There is a certain Cheshire look, sort of countryside chic. Lots of women in very expensive wellies and men in very expensive quilted jackets or jumpers hung over their shoulders. But you can bet your life those wellies, jackets or jumpers never get dirty. It’s not like these people are farming folk. I’ve worn stuff like that in the past, when I was in my horseracing phase. I dressed like I thought a man who was into horses should dress – brown cords, wax jacket, flat cap – until I realised I probably wasn’t really into horses but just liked going to the races and drinking Guinness in the fresh air. Or in the rain. When I first started dressing like that, my missus looked at me and said, ‘I won’t even bother saying anything, but you’ll get bored with this eventually.’ She knew. Like she always knows.
I don’t worry about getting old, it just amazes me. I sometimes think, ‘How am I in my forties? How have I got four kids? How is one of them six foot one with giant feet?’ The worst part about getting old is the realisation that you’ll never be able to do certain things again. It only recently dawned on me that I’ll never play cricket again, and there will come a time when I can’t do a lot of the physical things I’m able to do now. I get sore in the morning, I can’t keep up with the kids when we go running.
I look at mates in their mid-forties and think, ‘Jesus, they look old.’ And then I’ll look in the mirror and think, ‘There’s no getting away from it, you’re starting to look old yourself.’ I didn’t think it would bother me, but it does a little bit. Every now and again, someone will post a picture of me online from a few years ago and I’ll think, ‘Who’s this young fella?’ And it will be me. The most frightening part about ageing is knowing that one morning you’re going to look in the mirror and realize you’ve turned into your dad.
But while my appearance changing might bother me a little bit, actually getting old doesn’t really. Obviously, I don’t want to get ill, and that tends to happen the older you get. But I think that makes you look after yourself a little bit better. I want to go on for as long as possible, even make it to a hundred. As long as I’m relatively healthy and can do stuff, I wouldn’t mind that at all. I just don’t want to be a burden and sat there all day in an old people’s home with a
blanket over my legs, occasionally singing old songs, like anything by Stormzy.
What I don’t understand about old people’s homes is why the chairs are so uncomfortable. They’re like the shitty chairs you get for visitors in hospitals, they don’t even recline. If you were building an old people’s home, you’d think that would be the most important thing, given that old people sit in them all day. It’s got to be looked at, along with lots of stuff to do with old people. There’s more and more old folk in this country, but they’re still being ignored. The old model, where you just mothball old people in dreary homes, sit them in a circle and entertain them with Werther’s Originals is not going to cut it with future generations. They won’t put up with it. Instead of comfy chairs, they’ll be demanding swimming pools and gyms and games consoles. And they should get it, instead of just a room with a window that they can stare out of, which costs them all the money they saved over the course of their working lives. It’s shit the way old people are treated; we need to look after them better.
One of the strangest things about life is that we all know we’re going to die but hardly anyone spends any time thinking about it. That’s quite mind-blowing when you think about it. We go through life spending so much time making plans and trying to make some kind of sense of it all and we don’t seem to care about the dying bit. You’d think old people would walk around with terrified looks on their faces, knowing that they were nearing the end, but most of them seem to be happier than young people. I suppose it’s because no one knows what happens when you die and it’s impossible to find out. Religious people think there’s Heaven, but what happens after Heaven? Where do people go after that? There must be something else. Or do you get sent back down to earth again, for another crack at life? Maybe as a cockroach or a tree?
Until scientists can tell me otherwise, absolutely categorically, I’ll not stop believing there’s something else. I know they’ve got their Big Bang theory, but what was before the Big Bang? Exactly. They haven’t thought about that. I think there’s a chance we’re not even here. We’re pawns in a game that’s being played, like in The Matrix. But then you have to ask yourself, whose game is it and who are they playing against? The questions never end. That’s why we’re programmed not to think about it, despite being so advanced. If we did, our brains would explode from the sheer mysteriousness of it all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHRISTMAS CHEER
I must admit I’m a fan of Christmas. I love it. The carols, the Christmas pop songs when you’re out doing your shopping. They remind me of a job I had one year, working in Woolworths, in charge of decorations. I even like Chris Rea’s ‘Driving Home’ for Christmas. I’m not averse to listening to that one in July. But that’s mainly because I’ve only got four albums on my phone: Christmas pop songs, that free one U2 sent out and I didn’t know how to get rid of, Plan B’s The Defamation of Strickland Banks and Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits. I must have listened to the Plan B album about 500 times, the same with Neil Diamond. Whenever I’m travelling, I have them on. But I’ve never listened to that U2 album. Does anyone know how to get rid of it?
My big problem with Christmas is presents, in that I don’t like getting them. I find it a bit stressful, especially when someone gets me something extravagant. My kids get me personalised cards from Moonpig, which I will treasure for the rest of my life, because they put some effort into designing them. And I once got a coffee cup, which doesn’t sound like much, but that’s been in my car ever since. That said, if the kids ever become minted, they can buy me whatever they want.
I enjoy giving presents and seeing the happiness on people’s faces. Not that there’s always joy on people’s faces, because I’m not a great buyer. I’m a panicker, I usually leave it to the last minute and hope I’ve pulled it out of the bag. But if someone doesn’t like something I’ve bought them, it doesn’t bother me. I keep the receipts, because it irritates me when people keep things they don’t really want. I can see it on their faces, that pretend smile that’s almost a grimace. And I’ll think, ‘I’m a big boy, you can tell me you don’t like it and we’ll go and get something else instead.’ It’s not like Santa’s elves spent months knocking it up in their workshop, it was probably made in China by underpaid factory workers.
Give my wife her due, she gets me good things. Like my mum and dad when I was a kid, they never, ever got it wrong. Not once. I’d come downstairs, walk in the back room and all the presents would be in there. Everyone would open them in front of each other and there would always be a big one for me and my brother. One year, my dad had been on strike for months but they somehow managed to get us an Amiga computer. I have no idea how they did it, although I do remember them eating a lot of egg and chips. Looking back, they must have gone without so much stuff themselves to be able to afford it.
Buying for women at Christmas is an absolute minefield, for the simple reason that women aren’t men. How am I meant to know what a woman wants to wear? Lingerie is the biggest killer. Are you meant to buy what you want or what you think she’d like? I’ll walk in the shop with the best intentions, get flustered and end up buying a pair of massive knickers, like Hattie Jacques wore in the Carry On films. I mean, how are you supposed to explain what your wife might want to the shop assistant? Or what shape her body is and how big certain things are? That’s not something I really want to be discussing with a stranger in the middle of a shop. That’s where the internet comes in handy. Or the Littlewoods catalogue. Saves on those awkward conversations.
If it’s a particularly persistent shop assistant and you’re shopping for lingerie, walking out is not easy. You can’t exactly pretend you thought it was the electronics department: ‘Where are your electric toothbrushes? This is the lingerie department, you say? Sorry, madam, I didn’t realise. I thought they might be over there, by the girdles . . . ’
Kids won’t believe you when you tell them, but there was a time, not so long ago, when the lingerie sections of clothing catalogues were an entry point for teenage boys, where they first laid eyes on semi-naked women. In the internet age, the entry point doesn’t even bear thinking about. Let’s just say it isn’t a woman wearing a pair of sensible knickers in the Little-woods catalogue, standing coyly with her back to the camera. You might say kids today are spoiled, in a very real sense. No wonder they never leave their bedrooms:
‘I’m still playing Fortnite! Be down in a minute.’
‘Yes, of course you are . . . ’
Who are they trying to kid?
As I’ve already said, I get nervous shopping for myself. If a shop assistant collars me as soon as I walk through the door, I immediately zone out and turn on my heels. I feel like I’m being watched, as if I’m in some Hitchcock psychological thriller. I’ll convince myself that every time I pick an item of clothing up, they’re hovering over my shoulder and mumbling, ‘That’s never going to fit him, the fat bastard. Who the hell does he think he is?’ And if I do take a pile of clothes into the fitting room, I’ll have to buy at least one item, otherwise the shop assistants will think I’m too fat to get into anything. I’ll be standing there staring at one of those ludicrously bright mirrors they have in fitting rooms, wearing a pair of jeans that are two sizes too small for me, thinking, ‘The brightest mirror does not lie. These jeans do not fit. But I will slim into them.’ Two days later, I’ll ask my missus to take them back.
Posh shops are the worst, a whole different level of stiff. When I used to take the kids with me when they were younger to posh shops, the assistants would be so stiff and watch us like hawks. You could tell they were on edge, getting ready to press the alarm under the desk and summon security. The northern accent didn’t help. I’d feel like Fagin and his little gang of pick-pockets, let loose up the West End. If a posh shop assistant gave us a smile and left us to it, I’d repay them by ordering the kids to behave themselves. Otherwise, I’d whisper to them, ‘Kids, consider this shop a playground, where anything goes.’ With that, they’d
start grabbing expensive sunglasses and trying them on, spraying each other with aftershave and perfume. And I’d watch the shop assistants getting flustered and think, ‘No sympathy. Play the snobbery game with us and you will lose.’
Shop assistants in America are the busiest bastards. As soon as you set foot into a shop, they’re all over you like flies on shit. If you can’t find you what you came in for, they’ll start suggesting alternatives: ‘What about this? Or what about this? This would look great on you.’ I’ll be thinking, ‘Erm, no, why would I take advice on what to wear from a complete stranger from America?’ It used to really get on my nerves, until I learned that the reason American shop assistants are so busy isn’t because they’re just naturally lovely people, it’s because they’re all on commission. If too many people walk out of their shop without buying anything, they don’t make much money.
Being a cricketer, I’ve been having random Christmases since my teenage years. I’ve experienced Christmases all over the world, from Australia to Pakistan to South Africa. I hated most of those Christmases, they were shocking. Yes, I got to party with my teammates, but only some of my teammates were actually mates. Some of them I didn’t really like. And who wants to spend Christmas sitting around a table with random blokes and their families?
Nowadays, going out for dinner on Christmas Eve is a family tradition, while I prefer to spend Christmas Day at home. We all open our presents in the morning and the rest of the day is for eating. Apart from one year, when my missus went rogue and insisted the kids open some presents in the morning and some in the afternoon. I couldn’t be doing with that. It doused the drama. Opening Christmas presents is all about the kids turning into animals for 15 minutes and leaving the entire room filled with wrapping paper and boxes so that it looks like a rubbish tip. Opening presents at different times of the day must be a southern thing, and I don’t like it one bit.
Right, Said Fred Page 14