Mumbai

Yesterday we left Jaipur at 5.45 am for Mumbai. We were told we would see the slums made famous in Slum Dog Millionaire and although I did see the customary hovels by the roadside my first impression was of a modern, thriving city of skyscrapers and office blocks. The traffic was horrendous but as we crawled along Marine Drive, with the ocean to our right you could have been in an American seaboard city.

The group were visibly relieved that the afternoon city tour which would have allowed a break of just 45 minutes at arrival was cancelled. The hotel is one of the renowned Oberoi Group but to date the room is the smallest and least well appointed. I was confused how the lift worked but a helpful bearded red-headed young man assisted me who turned out to Ben Stokes. Another aloof guy came in the lift staring pointedly forward whom I recognised as Jimmy Anderson. Heaven forbid he should have to greet a supporter who had travelled thousands of miles to watch the team. Batting coach Mark Ramprakash was sighted by the pool.

The group now has its own leader and we could not have a better qualified one as he is Major General Dair Hockley- Farrar who won the Military Cross at Goose Green in the  Falklands. On the very first lunch in the Taj Mahal hotel in New Delhi he distributed  his birthday cake to every guest.

Like most military types I have encountered at the highest level he is utterly charming and natural leader of men and women. We all convened in the rather cramped bar but Dair – as he wishes to be known – organised a table for 12. Looking around the table where there was much drinking and even greater laughter, it was difficult to imagine that less than 7 days ago none knew one another. Inevitably too, just as there is a natural leader, there is the Mick MacManus “the-man-you-love-to-hate” and he is Anthony, an insufferable pompous bore with a plummy Henry Blofeld voice like a foghorn, who suffers from extreme impatience and great rudeness. Another member of the group sat next to him on the flight and said afterwards “I took one for the team”.

Anthony described the arrangements at the airport as a shambles but in fact all our luggage was marked with its own number by the travel company and was carefully counted in and off in Max Hastings style of which the Major General would have approved.  I sat next to his wife over dinner, a lady clearly used to breaking the ice with a confident social manner. I was more interested to take the conversation to her, suggesting  that inquiries such as Saville one into  Bloody Sunday were a total waste of public money (£200m) and deprived us of an experienced, eminent judge for years. She said that it all started when a nervous para was too trigger happy. She would know all about that as her father, husband and his father (known as Hockley-Para) were all distinguished paratroopers. The Major General’s parting shot was to explain that his regiment spent months in the desert of Libya protecting King Idris with no sun block which had affected his health for ever more. Meeting him, I felt rather proud to be British and remembered my late father’s observation that “the best person you can meet in the world is a nice Englishman”. Oh, and by the way, Dair kept the itemised bill just in case there should be any inquiry into his allocation of it.