Sunday, July 09, 2006
LANDMARK OF THE YEAR
There are many landmarks throughout the year - and today provided one for me.
Today is the last day of the Wimbledon tennis championships.
I have been a fan of the tennis at Wimbledon since childhood and I feel a kind of sadness as the last strains of the familiar BBC signature tune dies away for the last time.
I first noticed tennis from my sick bed. I guess it was the year I got chicken pox during a heat wave. I spent the days in my parents bedroom and could listen to the radio - no television for us in those days. I was fascinated by the tennis commentary - all those tennis terms and the descriptions of the players.
Even as a small girl I could conjure up exciting images from the spoken words - and sort of fell in love with Ken Rosewall, who played his first Wimbledon final that year against Lew Hoad.
Later, each year I would prepare an exercise book with the draw of all the first round matches and then fill in the winners and scores and move onto the subsequent rounds. I would pour over the sports pages of The Times to fill in all the details and to cut out photographs.
I learned to play tennis at school. I wasn't really very good - but good enough to play for the school against other schools sometimes. Later I spent more time in the umpires chair - a school chair perched on a school desk.
I soon realised that other people could watch the matches on TV and I wormed my way into the house next door, where Mr and Mrs Langridge lived - Min and Percy.
They didn't worry about things like schooling and exams and kept their mouths shut when I sneaked off school in the afternoons to watch my favourites.
And so the pattern was established - for 2 weeks each summer I would get absorbed in the tennis and the lives of the players.
For more than 50 years I have done this and each year on the last day I suffer the pangs of farewells to those I have come to care about.
Even when I was young, as the last views of the courts faded, I would ponder on the passage of time and wonder where I would be and what I would be doing during the next Wimbledon. Even then thoughts of mortality crossed my mind - would I actually be alive?
And yet there was a sort of security in knowing that whatever happened to me Wimbledon would still be there - almost like the annual blooming of daffodils and the falling of leaves.
And so yet again the curtain has fallen. The elegant and poised Roger Federer has won yet again - deservedly so. The new blood of Rafael Nadal cannot yet be the master, but he is very young. His day should come.
Maybe next year.
But for now we must all move on. They will have more tennis to play around the world. I have my life.
We will meet again this time next year.
Today is the last day of the Wimbledon tennis championships.
I have been a fan of the tennis at Wimbledon since childhood and I feel a kind of sadness as the last strains of the familiar BBC signature tune dies away for the last time.
I first noticed tennis from my sick bed. I guess it was the year I got chicken pox during a heat wave. I spent the days in my parents bedroom and could listen to the radio - no television for us in those days. I was fascinated by the tennis commentary - all those tennis terms and the descriptions of the players.
Even as a small girl I could conjure up exciting images from the spoken words - and sort of fell in love with Ken Rosewall, who played his first Wimbledon final that year against Lew Hoad.
Later, each year I would prepare an exercise book with the draw of all the first round matches and then fill in the winners and scores and move onto the subsequent rounds. I would pour over the sports pages of The Times to fill in all the details and to cut out photographs.
I learned to play tennis at school. I wasn't really very good - but good enough to play for the school against other schools sometimes. Later I spent more time in the umpires chair - a school chair perched on a school desk.
I soon realised that other people could watch the matches on TV and I wormed my way into the house next door, where Mr and Mrs Langridge lived - Min and Percy.
They didn't worry about things like schooling and exams and kept their mouths shut when I sneaked off school in the afternoons to watch my favourites.
And so the pattern was established - for 2 weeks each summer I would get absorbed in the tennis and the lives of the players.
For more than 50 years I have done this and each year on the last day I suffer the pangs of farewells to those I have come to care about.
Even when I was young, as the last views of the courts faded, I would ponder on the passage of time and wonder where I would be and what I would be doing during the next Wimbledon. Even then thoughts of mortality crossed my mind - would I actually be alive?
And yet there was a sort of security in knowing that whatever happened to me Wimbledon would still be there - almost like the annual blooming of daffodils and the falling of leaves.
And so yet again the curtain has fallen. The elegant and poised Roger Federer has won yet again - deservedly so. The new blood of Rafael Nadal cannot yet be the master, but he is very young. His day should come.
Maybe next year.
But for now we must all move on. They will have more tennis to play around the world. I have my life.
We will meet again this time next year.
