A chapter from Great Australian Sporting Stories by Ian Heads and Norman Tasker,. Recorded for Bolinda Audio in September 2019.
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
AustralianTranscript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
a trip to the stars. Norman Tasca International Sport offers some rare privilege is not always appreciated by young sportsman. An invitation issued to the Australian cricket team in England during the Ashes series of 1977 is a case in point. So Bernard Lovell and his team of radio physicists invited the team for a reception and tour of the Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope facility in Cheshire. It was a cricket laid A, and the players had it officially off, so attendance was optional. By late afternoon, it was apparent that few of the party intended to go. So the team manager, Len Maddux, rounded up several of us Pressman to bolster attendance and, no doubt, to minimise embarrassment. Two or three players came as well. When we got there, the full complement of astrophysicists was on hand, accompanied by their wives dressed to the nines. Food and drink were late on, and they clearly had been preparing for a considerable party. The place had an aura about it, as did the people themselves, leaders in their field and brilliant men of international renown. Bernard Lovell had been a pioneer in the development of radar through World War two having a significant impact on the outcome. He fought to develop Jodrell Bank's giant telescope as the space race was starting and headed in place in 1957 to track Russia's Sputnik. The first man made satellite in space. He was recognised as a pioneer of space exploration, a devotion to cricket since his boyhood had led him to invite the Australians of Greg Chappell's team. And the majority who skipped it missed a significant experience. We were treated to a unique look into the heavens and conversation with a man who at that time had been closest to the mysteries of the universe than perhaps any other for all of us. When we came here, we were very knowledgeable in Enfield. We knew so much, he told me. And after a couple of decades here, we know so muchmore. Yet our understanding is so much less. He confided that most of the senior people who work there where elders of the church a nod perhaps to the great mysteries that their telescope could see and those that could not. At one point, they thought they had discovered alien life in deep space and set on the news for some months until they could be sure it turned out to be a pulsar or a neutron star that emits regular radiation. So Bernard said it had been a very tense time for his team. That visit remains an important experience for me, and it says something of the narrow cricket culture of the time that so many of the players passed it up. It wasn't the only time, either, that the team turned its back on a significant cultural experience. When the caravan was at Swansea, Wales, for a match against Gormogon, a visit was arranged. Tow a pub in the village of Ponte Idolise, a stencil B to soak up some of the local culture. The Pont Idolised Town Choir had recently won the European song contest, and towards the end of the evening they wandered in from practise for a drink, and before long they broke into song around the fire. The effect was overwhelming. Listening to them in these circumstances as casual as you like, as they saying purely for the fun of it. Sipping beers, they did so was pure joy. Half a dozen of us had stayed to hear them, but only three players Kim Hughes, Gary Cosy and Doug Walters. The rest had left because the beer wasn't free