The one and only time I met Bruno Lawrence…

One Sunday in the early 90s some friends and I headed up to Prince Of Wales Park for a cricket hit around. When we got there the field was already taken by various actors and musos including Bruno and family members.  So we challenged them to a game.

Bruno decided he’d field with us because we were down on numbers and we got talking about drummers, standing in the slips. He was hilarious. . I told him about how I saw him at The Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival – we were walking up to the site when this old bomb of a car came roaring past with Bruno’s feet sticking out the window waving to everyone.

It was all going great till the groundskeeper came out and told us all off and we had to pull stumps.

We relocated to Tanera Park and continued the game.

By now Bruno is telling me all about the West Indian openers Greenidge and Haynes and how they would get very wasted in the Caribbean style just before they went out to bat. He seemed to know them the way he described their ritual.

At the change of innings he called me to come for a walk into the trees where he passed on more of that West Indian tradition in its purest form. I was opening the batting.

I was pumped and felt like I was wearing a helmet which I wasn’t. Bruno was sledging me from close cover and everyone was laughing.  I smacked 14 off the first over – blindly thrashing at everything then hit a soft bump-ball catch to Bruno who had been calling for me to do just that. Everyone went up except Bruno, gentleman that he was he called me back and I was run out next ball. He sledged me all the way off, the pair of us in fits of laughter. I don’t think I ever had so much fun in all my life.

The Ghost of Electricity – War Stories by Jon McLeary is a new initiative at Off The Tracks, a series of stories and reflections from painter, writer and musician Jon McLeary