Dear old Blowers

HENRY Blofeld was standing outside Waterstone's peering through the display window at the board announcing his appearance at the York bookstore later that evening. "Mr Blofeld," I said. On hearing his name, he turned round, and instinctively responded "My dear old thing", the antiquarian greeting that accompanies Blofeld's every turn in the Test Match Special cricket commentary box on BBC Radio 4.

He is one of those wizards of the wireless, instantly recognisable by voice but whose face to many remains as much a mystery as the art of bowling a googly. Yet even if you knew him only from his Old Etonian, plum-soaked tones and ebullient commentaries, you would still have hazarded a guess that the dandy English gentleman in the bow tie, blazer and pocket watch chain was indeed Blofeld.

Like John Arlott and Brian Johnston - although he makes no claim to be in their peerless league - Blofeld has become synonymous with the English summer game, eloquently described from the commentary seat.

His love affair with the game and more besides - not least his strangely Edwardian childhood, food and wine, and a hair-raising journey in 1976 from London to Bombay in a 1921 Rolls Royce - are recorded in his autobiography, A Thirst For Life with the Accent On Cricket. This is his tenth book, the first since heart surgery last year. Blofeld, who is 61, says the surgery did not directly make him think it was time to reflect on his life but "that was certainly in the publisher's mind".

"Being lazy by nature, maybe I'd never wanted to get my mind around writing it, but being down in Norfolk for four months last year - (the Blofeld family seat for nigh on 500 years has been Hoveton St John) - I did start to think about it - and I was amazed how much I could remember even from when I was four or five," he said.

"I wrote 150,000 words between February and June this year, and that was a sign of my enthusiasm, because if I'd got bored I wouldn't have written it so quickly.

"But I'm not sure it's so much a reflection on my life as an account of what's happened and what I've enjoyed in my life." In other words, another autobiography is on the cards.

The life has been lived fully, albeit with cricket at the epicentre. "Walking into the pavilion at Lord's was tantamount to a religious experience," he recalls in the book. At 16 Henry scored a century at headquarters for the Public Schools against the Combined Services, a feat matched only by those doyen of the game, Peter May and Colin Cowdrey. At 17, in 1957, he was captain of Eton but a bicycle accident left him unconscious for days - he had been struck by a bus. He still went on to win a cricket Blue at Cambridge, but merchant banking rather than cricket was to be his initial profession. Yet the pull of the game was strong: James Woodcock of The Times gave him his break, and he has since written for The Guardian, The Independent, and The Independent On Sunday and now The Oldie (as the newly-appointed wine correspondent).

He has been in broadcasting since 1969, both home and abroad, not least in Australia where his cult status has led to his autobiography being in the bestsellers' list.

The honest, sardonic printed word and flamboyant radio commentary have been his forte. "I've never been very good at telly because I won't conform, but radio allows me to do what I want," he said. "I write and say what I feel; I like to think I'm not heavily prejudiced - but that might be conceited of me!"

With his tendency to draw attention to passing buses, butterflies and pigeons as much as a flowing cover drive, he is considered an eccentric fellow. "Yes, I suppose one is... eccentric in a certain way but it's not a studied thing. Like, why do I wear bow ties? The actual reason is I went out to dinner or lunch three days running and was tired of messing up my ties, so I thought 'stuff it'. I bought six bow ties the next day at Turnbull & Asser. They were the sort of thing that made people angry at the clubs I'd go to. People would say 'take them off' but that appealed to the waspish side of me."

As with bow ties, Blofeld knows he cannot please everybody with his Test Match commentaries. "I don't enjoy listening to myself; I think who's that pompous chap?!," he said. Yet he likes the disparate voices and backgrounds that make up the Test Match Special commentary team, and the balance between professional broadcasters doing the commentary and former players providing the expert analysis.

"The one caveat is that those of us who played little top-class cricket should not start having arguments with those who did. That would be impertinence," he said.

"In commentary, you should try not to be absolutely certain that you're always right!"

While on the subject of impertinence, it was time to dare to ask Henry the James Bond question.

Was there any connection between Ian Fleming's fictitious baddie and his family.

"My dear old thing, Ian and my father were terrific friends, so he used the name," he said.

You learn something new every day.

Henry Blofeld, A Thirst For Life with the Accent On Cricket, Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99 in hardback