h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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From left to right, Dickie Bird (81), Geoff Boycott (73) and Michael Parkinson (79), at the first day of the Headingley Test match last week, against Sri Lanka.

While they might not have been schoolfriends, and there's eight years between their ages, they've known each other since they played for Barnsley Cricket Club in the 1950s. They've all risen to the top in their chosen professions - a cricketer, a cricket umpire and a journalist/interviewer, and all three are enjoying a comfortable retirement which allows them the opportunity to meet up each year at a an event they all have an interest in (and probably at other times too, but having a specific event such as the Headingley Test adds extra cream to the cake).

As well as that, they could easily be said to have a continuing second career as professional Yorkshiremen.

It must be nice to have those four things when you're in the twilight of your years - a fantastic life to look back on, friendships that have lasted 50 or 60 years, enough money to never worry about your retirement and a strong identity to feel a part of - something always associated with Yorkshire, and which was made much of during both the radio and television commentary that day. In a good way.

While having a strong communal identity can sometimes lead to narrow-mindedness, jingoism and prejudice when it's given its head (and sometimes when it isn't), it's a nice thing to feel that you're a part of a geographically- or culturally-based community that, almost, has its own lifeforce, and a history, whether it's Yorkshire, Texas, Lancashire, Cockneys, the Welsh valleys, Brooklyn, Native Americans.

I'm envious, in some ways, of people who have been content to spend their life in the place where they grew up and still know friends they went to school with, perhaps even married their school sweetheart That kind of life hasn't been for me, partly because I grew up in a place where not many people stick around, and partly because it's not in my nature to do that, although I've lived at the same address for almost 14 years now and I find myself saying, quite frequently, that I couldn't imagine living anywhere else but Austin, even if I became fabulously wealthy. On the other hand, both Austin and this street have changed a lot in the past few years and aren't the same town/street where I've felt so comfortable, so maybe change is in the air.

I do have a few schoolfriends that I'm still in touch with but I can't remember exactly the last time I saw any of them. It must have been in the 90s for two of them and the 70s for the other one. There's a good reason for that - I'm here in Texas, one is in Essex, one is in Glasgow and the third is in Australia. We keep talking about a reunion but I have no idea if it'll ever happen.

I do have a pretty good life to look back on (not in the same league as someone like Parky, of course, who has interviewed almost everyone who's anyone, and if you have a Bacon number of four or five to him you can get to just about every famous person in the world in six degrees)*. I reckon most of the people who knew me at school wouldn't never have expected me to do the things I've done, see the things I've seen, meet the people I've met, and end up in Texas. If I was to add that I've managed a bar in Texas they'd a) never believe me, because they'd b) probably imagine a place where fights break out on a regular basis, as well as the odd gunshot, and where there's a cage in front of the stage to stop people throwing bottles at the band.

They couldn't be more wrong

Perhaps this is all just a perfectly natural part of being closer to the end of one's life than the begginning.

*If Parky ever interviewed Fred Dibnah, my Bacon number for him is two).

That is almost exactly how I feel. I've moved around since I was a young girl and am only in the vaguest of contact with people from pre-secondary school (that I'm not related to). But I really can't imagine it any other way.

And I do, as you know, cling to my Yorkshire roots

I know

I couldn't wait to get out of the place where I grew up, but looking back it was actually a pretty good place to bring up a kid, and to be a kid. Relatively crime-free (at least, it was then), decent schools, a good mix of social groups (although virtually no-one who wasn't white European), no shortage of jobs, close to the countryside while still being suburban, plenty of amenities, every kind of shop you could want, although you had to go a long way to get any beer that wasn't Watney's Red Barrel or Double Diamond.

And one of the world's great cities on the doorstep.

If I'd stayed there though, I wouldn't have had half the life I have done, or maybe I would have had an even better life - there's no way of knowing these things. But there are some people who are content to do that, and contentment is something I prize above almost all else. Not blind contentment in the way of accepting the status quo and being satisfied with what you have, regardless of how unjust it might (or might not) be. I'm probably thinking of an idealised contentment that the Labour government of the late 40s might have envisaged for the working class when they did things like setting up the NHS and nationalising essential services. A life free of worry about getting ill and not being able to pay the bills, a life with a decent job (that pays a living wage) and a decent home, and a dignified retirement.