Sandi and me

What follows may be of interest to even fewer people than this post was - only me and the person it connects me to; and she may not be all that interested. But what the hell. If there weren't space on a person's blog for the arcane, not to say the recondite, where would we all be? (Reading something else? Please - feel free.)

As a boy I put together a series of cricket scrapbooks, and thanks to a wise decision of my ever-loving Mom I still have them. The first scrapbook, its pages yellowing and flaky at the edges, is now 50 years old - 50 years! And yet I am young at heart. Anyway, here's the story. In November 1957, the Australians, led by Ian Craig, played against Rhodesia in Bulawayo (you can read about it on pages 780-1 in Wisden for 1959). Percy Mansell scored 50 not out for the home side in the second innings, and in the third volume of my scrapbooks there is a photograph of a presentation being made to him shortly after that. The caption reads:

A pleasantly informal ceremony was performed in Bulawayo last night when Percy Mansell, who celebrated his 21st year of representative cricket for Rhodesia by scoring 50 runs against the Australians earlier this month, was presented with a gramophone record recalling the performance. A disc had been cut by the FBS in Salisbury from the broadcast commentary, and in the Bulawayo FBS studios, Mansell is seen receiving the record from studio manager Tom Pile. Looking on are (left) Rhodesia Cricket Union president Barrie Day, and broadcaster Claus Toksvig, one of the commentators on the disc.

Somewhere in the deep recesses of what I still presume to call my mind a memory of this picture and its accompanying information lay, until I was sent in search of it again by the preparation for this Danish post and the information I came across for Sandi Toksvig:

Her father, Claus Toksvig, was a foreign correspondent for Danish television, and was sent on assignments to several countries around the world, and so Sandi Toksvig was brought up in Europe, Africa, and the United States.

You will say that Sandi's connection with her father is a lot closer than mine, and I won't deny it - even though she wasn't yet born when the picture was taken, whereas I, plainly, was. But it does just show you how cricket brings people together.

If there's a normblog reader who can draw this amazing story to Sandi Toksvig's attention, I hope you will.