Ahead of a highly anticipated President's Day this coming Sunday, friend of the club, David Rimmer, reflects on what Nick Gandon meant to him and many others.

NICK Gandon’s sad passing at the end of February 2025 was tough to bear on so many levels. Obviously, it has hit his family the hardest and will continue to do so after an awful illness which must have more than tested their resilience.

His death has also affected people in so many ways. I could not have claimed to have been a close friend of his; he was more of a friend or at times of little contact, an acquaintance. And yet he had an unwitting and yet profound influence on my life, which is why I feel compelled to write more than a few words about him and pen a more complete record than my initial Facebook ramblings.

Nick had a national presence in terms of Cricket and Charities. This was covered in Obituaries in The Times and The Cricketer, but I am sure people reading these pieces spotted that it did not cover the whole man. National publications, as I have found to my cost over the years, care little for the provincial or the local. They are by and large solely interested in the big time but in mitigation the Times did say that Nick was not materialistic.

They got that spot on.

Yes, Nick knew important people and had deep bonds with people in education, but he was not a superfluous presence locally. The likes of long-term Hoddesdon CC members such as Barry Helliwell, Aidan McElligott, Peter Grant, and Terry Pearson are just four of many people that would testify to that. As the son of a vicar, Percy, Nick was open-minded and could see the importance of humanity and chances for people.

I am sure many people at Hoddesdon CC will have their memories and some will be of a deeper nature. However, I have written this from the perspective of someone who was not involved with Hoddesdon CC but knew Nick from a local angle. I will go back to 1973 when I first had recollections of Nick and there are roughly five phases of my link to him, and what he meant to me.

Haileybury 1973-1977 and Hoddesdon CC 1978
I have vague memories as the son of a Housemaster at Haileybury and turning 10 in the summer of 1973. Formality and showing respect were de rigueur with the emphasis on saying sir, please and thank you at the appropriate times very much to the fore reinforced by strict discipline at the prep school I attended in Gloucestershire from the age of eight.
I first recalled Nick when I saw him play for the Haileybury Hermits in July 1973 a year before he left school. Perhaps I was too easily impressed but he looked to be a good batsman and then in 1974 seeing Nick, as captain, taking five wickets with his slow spin against Harrow. I can vividly recall Haileybury blocking for the draw scoring 75-8 from 55 overs in response to Harrow’s 162-9.

When I later came to write the school’s Cricket History in 1992 Gandon’s team seemed to be among the best five in the Post Second World War era. That team included left arm quick bowler Andrew Wood whom I believed played for Hoddesdon later on.

I have digressed. I vividly recall Nick as a 21 year old asking me to score for the Hermits in 1977 and making sure I was paid £2 at the end of it. He enquired about my welfare during the day, and I could see that he was a kind person. One saw good players, but they were not always nice people. Nick was and so was his father Percy whom I remembered for his calm sermons when I went with my family to Hoddesdon Parish Church at Easter a few times.

I first saw Nick as cricketer outside a Haileybury setting when he played for Hoddesdon against a Middlesex team in aid of Mike Brearley’s benefit in July 1978. I could only admire from afar as Nick, helmetless, faced the pace of the fearsome West Indies quick Wayne Daniel. And he was quick when he cranked it up for a few deliveries. It was like watching a red speck that flew by. At that stage helmets were gradually being introduced into the pro game after they were used in the first Packer season Down Under in 1977-78 but my memory might be wrong.

Contact via St Margaretsbury, Hoddesdon, and History of Haileybury Cricket –
1982-1992
A year out of Haileybury I went on my first cricket tour with St Margaretsbury CC in Norfolk. Nick was deputed to pick me up from the flat my parents lived in for a year which he later lived in with his family. As he was seven years older than me, I still felt in awe of him, but he made me feel at ease. When I offered him petrol money, he said there was no need but did it in such a graceful way. I was impressed.

He played capably on the tour, but my main memory was of him doing a piece on the piano in the Cromer clubhouse and everybody walking out quietly. He turned round at the end of his piece waiting for the applause, but none came. There was only the bar man left with various drunken cricketers hooting with laughter outside.

At around this stage I had no real connection with the Haileybury Hermits but noted from a distance how Nick had led them to the Cricketer Cup Final in 1983. Two years later, I saw an angry side to his character which I rarely came across. It came when St Margaretsbury played Hoddesdon at home in a Sunday friendly.

Peter Ellis, who skippered St Margaretsbury CC in Sunday friendlies that year and for most of the 1986 season, employed very defensive fields with no slips and a ring of fielders with Simon Law and Andrew Law bowling to orders of a tight line and length. They bowled virtually all the innings with the only other bowler being used being a part-time leg-spinner Dick Edge. Peter had outlined his plans to me the evening before saying he did not like to see runs given away too easily. As a 22-year-old I kept quiet as I was only a fill in for the team. Shortly after Nick got out, and he drove off angered at the tactics. But any fears he might have gone to Uppingham (where he taught) were allayed when he thought better of it and came back to the ground well before the end of Hoddesdon’s innings which saw them score 135 off more than fifty overs. In reply, St Margaretsbury scored 90-3 and the match was drawn.

Nick held no grudge with Peter and the two made up later. Peter after all had been his cricket coach at Haileybury and Nick had a great affection for him. Nick did much for Peter later in the latter’s life and gave eloquent and funny tributes at Peter’s funeral and Memorial Service (October 2022). Nick understood Peter’s character perfectly and the era in which the latter had been brought up.

After that game, my contact with Nick was minimal though I do recall him in early January 1992 to ask some question regarding a point about Haileybury Cricket at the start of the research which ended up with a book. He was gracious and helpful.

1993-2001
From April 1993 to March 1996, I worked in the North-East during which time Nick came back to Hertfordshire to teach at Haileybury in September 1993. After returning to Hertfordshire, I had apart form one brief interview with a matter at Haileybury as a news reporter in June 2000 minimal contact with Nick up to and including 2001, though he was always pleasant when I bumped into him.

2002-2008 – The Cricketer Cup
Unlike others who have played first class or Minor Counties Cricket, Nick Gandon embraced the Haileybury Hermits cause and by my reckoning he represented the Hermits in Cricketer Cup cricket between 1976 and 2008.

For him it was fun as it was playing for whatever team he played for Hoddesdon in later years. Getting teams out for away ties was not easy but Nick, unlike others, did not duck the issue. I remember when a game against Radley Rangers was postponed because of some rain at Haileybury and the tie went to Radley. For some silly reason it was put back to a Tuesday which was the same day as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2002.

Nick gave me a lift to Oxford and did not bitch about the inconvenience of the fixture. Despite getting a low score he embraced the day and was charming company. The day was also lifted for me by meeting John Woodcock, the former Times Cricket Correspondent and having a chat with him while he stood outside the scorebox. Woodcock was a gentleman and realised we were busy but asked for information in such a gentle and pleasant manner.
I have digressed. Nick played around six more games after that and was good enough aged almost fifty, to score 63, putting on 134 with Nick Walker in a losing cause against Old Tonbridgians in the second round in 2006. Unlike Walker’s savage hitting, Nick Gandon’s knock was full of finesse, and I vividly recall one superb lifted off drive for six off an off-spinner. It was an 80-yard hit. I also recall a delicious lunch and Nick as usual polished all of this off. He was the opposite of the modern fussy eater.

Then a year later, with a very weak Hermits team for a second-round tie he skippered against Old Reptonians. Nick led by example. The Hermits were reduced to 53-6 and Nick joined Mark Farmiloe, and they added a competition record of more than 130 runs for the seventh wicket with the former making a gritty and resourceful 52 not out on a green top. Mark later had the yips with the ball, and it influenced the result. Nick handled the situation sympathetically and did not bawl out Mark for two reasons. Mark was doing his best and the Hermits would not have been in the game but for Mark’s 88.

A year later, Nick, in his final cricketer Cup game (a quarter-final tie at Sherborne in Juuly 2008) claimed a five-wicket haul. He also showed his intelligence by getting that year’s school captain Rhys Carter involved in the conversation on the way. I had insisted Rhys go in the front so he could talk to Nick and feel a part of things. I am glad he did, and Rhys is now a strong part of the Hermits firmament. And that is down in no small way to Nick.

Before closing this part, I should emphasise that Nick’s performances came as a veteran player more than 15 to 20 years after most of his contemporaries. That showed the value of his longevity and his skill and technique against testing younger opponents. Context is vital in measuring performances in Sport and the Cricketer Cup, particularly after the first round, tests skills.

In hindsight, I am also glad that he did not play on any longer than he did as the next five years (2009-2013) for the Haileybury Hermits were poor and he did not deserve to be associated in a playing sense with that. He had to use a cliché fought the good fight and I am pretty confident nobody will match his longevity as his first Hermits Cricketer Cup game was I believe in 1976.

2009-2022
After the Cricketer Cup interlude, I stayed connected with Nick in a few ways. As a sports reporter I would drop into the Hoddesdon clubhouse for a shandy after I had been to a game in Bishop’s Stortford and enjoyed the occasional chinwag with him.

I also saw him occasionally at meetings in London towards the latter part of my tenure as Haileybury Hermits secretary (2003-2013) and recall Nick’s biting and challenging interventions in meetings. They were necessary and added focus though sometimes I spotted the twinkle in his eye that relished a confrontation against staid opinions.
I also cherished our chats at Highwood and his alternative and probing mind would come to the fore. Nick was never a name dropper, but he did recall with affection his university playing days with Graham “Foxy” Fowler who went on to play for England. Nick had bought the book and had been fascinated by it. However, I doubt whether Nick bought sports books religiously as he realised life had so much to offer. He was selective.
His wife Carole was always patient, and I tried never to outstay my welcome. I shall also cherish when he was unable to go to see a Henning Wehn show in Stevenage in October 2021and he gave me a ticket. It was a great evening’s entertainment from the German stand-up comedian.

After he left the area in July 2022 and I had written a piece about it in the Mercury, I missed his regular presence and like thousands of others was shocked and saddened by the diagnosis he received in early 2024.

I now take the attitude it was a bonus to have known him and feel for those close to him. I hope the tree planting ceremony at Hoddesdon CC with his close family in attendance goes well.

The cricket world, charities and the homeless owe Nick a lot. I will not bother to put him alongside other well-known figures from Haileybury in a pantheon of fame. He was a unique character taken before his time, who was integral to the fabric of Hoddesdon Cricket Club.

Nick’s life was well lived.

David Rimmer July 2025

Find out more about President's Day this Sunday at Lowfield and how you can get involved by clicking HERE.