Gamp, rainshade, bumbershoot … or simply an umbrella.
Telford Vice | The Wanderers
THERE’S much to be gleaned from an umbrella. Particularly on those strange days at the cricket when it’s too mean to rain properly and too mean to stop. And even more so if the umbrella in question is wielded by someone as unimpeachable as an umpire.
So whenever Bongani Jele, the reserve umpire in the Wanderers Test, put in an appearance on Thursday, interest piqued. The first time, while hopes of play before lunch flickered still, Jele’s trim, dapper figure emerged from the tunnel at the boundary’s edge holding his blue-and-white panelled umbrella bolt upright over his head and strode across the outfield to meet with Evan Flint, the curator. That done, Jele marched, with purpose, back from whence he came, as if he had something significant to tell Marais Erasmus and Allahudien Paleker. But he remained under his rhythmically bobbing canopy. Translation: it was raining hard enough to take cover.
The morning came and went and not a ball was bowled. So there was time to conduct research. Many of us will know the British call an umbrella a brolly. But they have also referred to it as a rainshade or a gamp — the latter because Mrs Gamp, a character in Charles Dickens’ “Martin Chuzzlewit”, was rarely without an umbrella. Americans have been known to call an umbrella a bumbershoot, especially when they wanted to poke fun at the British. Parasols — essentially umbrellas to ward off the sun, not rain — have been found in ancient Egyptian art dating back to 2450 BCE, and in the 1800s the Amanhene — senior figures in the Ashanti empire, or modern day Ghana — wielded large, vibrantly coloured umbrellas.
During lunch, umpire Jele was out there again. This time his umbrella was furled. Hope! But he was still busy talking to Flint when he had reason to pop up his bumbershoot in surrender.
Sure enough, the rain was soon tumbling down harder than ever. Puddles formed, and with them came a speckling of plovers. The sight of wading birds in the wild is soothing. On a cricket ground meant to be the stage for the pivotal day of a Test and maybe a series, not so much.
But this, too, passed. As the sky went through at least 50 shades of grey, happily lightening as the gloomy curtain faded, sunshine suggested itself coyly. All the while, Flint and his team hithered and thithered and super sopped and tugged covers this way and that.
Tea loomed before Jele returned. The umbrella? Furled! Firmly! As if summoned by the magic of that wand, some of South Africa’s players were suddenly starkly visible on the boundary in their dark warm-up kit. They took a moment to look at the ground, and turned on their heels to head for the indoor nets.
And then it came via the ground’s sound system, a familiar voice singing a familiar song: “Under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh …” The memory of a joke told by the late, loved Tony Cozier was evoked with due softness. The quip starred a fellow Bajan, and it went like this: “That Rihanna! She can’t stop calling me!” The song was the ringtone used by a television production assistant he worked with, and Cozier cracked it every time he heard her phone.
Soon the tortured strains of Prince’s “Purple Rain” were squawking in the still damp air. Then those of the Creedence Clearwater Revival’s dreary dirge, “Who’ll Stop the Rain”. Repeated riffs on that theme spooled through the steadily brightening scene, not least because the floodlights had blinked into life. Just before 3pm, a message materialised from South Africa’s dressing room: “We’ll start at 15:45 and play for 34 overs. Then we’ll take the extra 30 minutes to finish at 18:00, if possible.” With that, the stadium changed its tune. “Walking on Sunshine”, Katrina and the Waves’ irresistible ode to all things happy and glorious, boomed all around.
Of course, Jele and his umbrella weren’t going anywhere. Overseeing the preparation of the ground was his responsibility, and by his straight-backed bearing it was plain to see he took it seriously. So he must have been tense with apprehension when, 10 minutes before the resumption, an ominous noise was heard from near the edge of the square.
The sound was simultaneously squashed and screechy, a plea and a warning all in one. It was the rasp of an engine that was refusing to turn over and start: the super sopper was stuck. On the outfield. With those 10 empty minutes ticking away.
Jele stared steadily at the marooned metal beast as if he was watching a kettle, willing it to boil. On trotted a member of the groundstaff carrying the solution to the problem: petrol. The hard-working machine had simply run out of gas. Replenished, it sputtered then puttered into wakefulness, earning cheers from the pressbox.
Looking tired but satisfied it shambled towards the boundary, its job done and done well. Umpire Jele watched it all the way. Then he took his leave of the tableau in the same smart fashion in which he had entered it all those hours ago. With him, still furled, went his umbrella.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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