Sam Smith, 2002 – One of your editor’s guardian angels for over thirty years has been an improbable New Zealander by the name of Des Wilson. After dropping out of school at 15, Des arrived in England as a young man with only a few pounds and a lot of ideas. Since then he has started a housing program called Shelter; written for a number of publications; run for Parliament; and headed campaigns to get the lead out of gas, the secrecy out of information, and the Liberal Democrats into office; chaired Friends of the Earth; and written numerous books including a couple of novels in one of which I appear as a harried homeowner in council housing and, in another, my wife is an environmental activist in Portland, Maine. Once, at Buckingham Palace, Des stepped on one of Queen Elizabeth’s corgies. I suspect he said, “Bugger off,” but he has never admitted it.

In 1970, I heard Des speak about Shelter at a meeting of a housing and planning group on whose board I sat. I invited him over for a drink afterwards and — with a few interruptions for campaigns of one sort or another or for gainful employment – he never left. He has advised, entertained, employed, and insulted me in no predictable order and I have tried to return the favor.

Among his gifts has been to guide me in the way of British journalism, which still regards power with proper skepticism, the media as a lusty trade rather than a pompous profession, and words as something to be enjoyed and not merely processed. Thus it was that when a British hack filed from Africa word of a colleague’s demise, “Headley dead in uprising,” his editor, with an eye on circulation, fired back a telegram: “Why you undead?”

Des knew a reporter for the Observer by the name of Fergie who frequently vanished for lengthy periods, wiring repeatedly for more expenses. Once he wired to London to say he had information about a tribe of 100-year-olds in Ecuador but needed funds to travel there. He received the money and disappeared. Weeks later he wired for more funds. Reply: “What about tribe of 100 year olds?” Fergie wired back: “Alas, died of old age.”

On a trip back to London, Fergie promised to drink from every bottle on the long shelf above the bar in the Observer’s local pub. After two hours he demanded food and was given the one remaining pork pie. He kept drinking until the pub closed. He then returned at 5:30 PM to finish the task looking terrible. “Fergie,” cried the bar-tender, “you look dreadful.” “I know,” said Fergie. “I feel dreadful. It must have been that pork pie.”

Des was once in Ayachucho in the Andes waiting for his plane to Lima. The plane finally appeared but kept flying on without landing. “What the hell…?” snorted Des. “Its OK,” said an Ayachuchoan, “It does that sometimes. It’ll stop tomorrow.” So Des re-booked into the hotel, returning the following day. The same. “Most unusual,” said the local. He re-re-booked into the hotel and returned the following day. The plane finally landed. As the pilot stepped off the plane wearing 1930s style headgear, a crowd gathered around him and began arguing. Explained the Ayachuchoan, “Problem not over yet. Now it has to decide where it’s going next.” The ever resourceful Wilson plowed into the crowd waving his passport, pointing to the imprimatur of the Queen and her demand that her subjects be well treated by all and sundry. The pilot, impressed, announced that the plane would be going to Lima.

His later work led to a lot of speeches. Once he was speaking to a club in Lincolnshire. Before introducing him, the chairwoman bemoaned the small crowd and chastized the program committee saying, “We’ll never get better speakers until we improve attendance.”

On another occasion he was invited to speak to a dinner of county estate agents. The dinner dragged on and Des noticed that no only was a front table of agents getting drunk but they were betting among themselves on something.

Des finally got up to speak to a crowd that was half asleep and half inebrieated. He was only a few minutes into his talk when one of the men at the front table held up a sign that read, “Please stop talking or I will lose my bet.”

Finally, he reached what was, in his mind, a true pinnicle of achievement. He was named to the English and Wales Cricket Board.

Cricket, it has been noted, is the game in which “you have two sides: one out in the field and one in. Each man that’s on the side that’s in goes out and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out. When both sides have been in and out, including the not outs, that’s the end of the game.”

But it is serious business. Here is an actual quote from Sourav Ganguly during the 1991 test match between India and Australia: “This was the greatest Test I have played in. To come back and win after being asked to follow on is what dreams are made of.” Harold Pinter even rated cricket ahead of sex among God’s great gifts, although he admitted that sex wasn’t all that bad.

If you think my own disinterest in cricket is just so much more American jingoism, permit me to call to my defense George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, the former preferring baseball because it took less time and the latter refusing to play cricket because “requires one to assume such indecent postures.”

Given my indifference, I was hardly prepared to deal with an early morning’s call from Des announcing that he had resigned from the England and Wales Cricket Board over its planned Zimbabwe tour and that the decision was splashed all over the British media.

My initial response was, so this is how Tony Blair gets away with it, but after further inquiry and a little multitasking at my computer as Des spoke, I came up with the Guardian’s lead:

“English cricket’s attempt to adopt an ethical stance over the proposed tour of Zimbabwe was in tatters last night after the resignation of Des Wilson, the former Liberal Democrat party president hired by the England and Wales Cricket Board to develop a ‘moral’ policy over the scheduled tour. Mr Wilson resigned citing ‘profound differences’ with the other members of the ECB’s management over the tour, which is scheduled for October. The ECB has come under considerable political and public pressure to cancel the tour because of human rights abuses by Robert Mugabe’s regime.”

My respect for the man soared. Who else would think of using cricket as a weapon of mass destruction against the egregious Mugabe? Come to think of it, who in America would leave any board anymore because of a moral issue?

There were, of course, a few unsettled questions, like if this effort was successful, would Mugabe know enough to understand whether he was in or out, and if they finally did get him out would he merely assume that he could come in?

Still, I had to hand it to Des. After all these years, he had finally come up with a good reason for the existence of cricket.

American journalism died when it began to take itself too seriously. Des has helped me keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be that way. It also helps to have someone in your life who, when you write or say something about which you should have thought more, puts down his glass of Scotch and says, “Good God, Smith, have you gone completely mad?”

DES WILSON (R) WITH AUTHOR