Dickie Bird: Regrets of a cricketing legend at 92
Dickie Bird, South Yorkshire's cricketing treasure, admits that there is one thing he has missed out on in his 92-year lifetime...having his own family.
The legendary Barnsley sportsman confessed as much in an interview on the Sportstar website.
While he has made friends all over the world, and achieved so much in cricket, there were regrets, he said.
“Time flies. I am beginning to feel my age now,” he said.
“It’s not easy to live on your own at this age, but I carry on the best I can.
"I never married, and got myself married to cricket.
"But if I missed anything in life is getting married and having a little lad, who would have probably also played cricket,” he says.
"But it wasn't to be."
Dickie admits there are mornings when he doesn't see the point of getting out of bed.
He has previously admitted feeling lonely during the Covid lockdown.
But these days he enjoys reading, exercising in his back garden and replying to letters.
Harold Dennis Bird, the son of a coal miner, answered the question many people have asked him over the decades, in the interview.
“The nickname ‘Dickie’ was given to me at school. The Whites were ‘Chalkie’, all the Clarks were ‘Nobby’, and all the Birds were ‘Dickie’."
He added that his friend Tommy Taylor, a footballer who died in Manchester United's Munich air crash, had been known as ‘Tucker’ and was referred to as Little Tommy Tucker.
Dickie also mentioned that he had little time for modern-day mobile phones.
“I end up pressing random keys and dialling up wrong people", he explains.
"Random messages get delivered, and I can only make or receive calls. That’s it for me. I wish I could throw this small, annoying thing...”
Dickie Bird quirky factfile:
*During a Test at Old Trafford between England and West Indies, Dickie abruptly halted play to say, “I’m very sorry, gentlemen, but nature calls,” then sprinted off to the toilet. The crowd roared with laughter, and even the players were amused.
*In the United Arab Emirates, he was warned that sun's glare could harm his eyes, so Bird reportedly #looked away from the pitch and performed a crouched circular shuffle between balls, humorously searching like he’d lost a contact lens. Afterwards, he praised the advice: “Me eyes were great.”
*Arriving in Colombo, he accidentally got out of a car on the wrong side and wandered into traffic. Drivers immediately recognised him, shouting “Mr Dickie Bird,” then paused as he scuttled theatrically to safety in full showman mode.
*His autobiography sold over a million copies.
*Bird was asked to judge the annual talking-bird contest at the NEC in Birmingham. One year he was bitten by Billy, an Amazon parrot; the next year by Doodle, an Australian cockatoo.
*At Old Trafford in 1995, reflective glare from nearby windows disrupted play. Bird marched to the boundary, bellowing at hospitality boxes to shut their windows. Revellers invited him up for a beer.
* His friend Michael Parkinson once said: "Only Shakespeare could have invented a character so full of life’s rich juices as Dickie Bird..."