When you know someone for 52, maybe 53 years, it seems that you have known a host of different people, not just one individual. There was the young boy who becomes a teenager, a young man, a married man, a father. It has been my pleasure to have been a friend of Peter’s through each of these different stages of his life, a friendship that endured and I’d like to think strengthened over time.
In his quite brilliant piece “Stories I tell my kids” Peter charts how his brother Canice and himself ended up in the playground that was Castle Avenue after the death of his father. In this environment, Peter was a quiet boy but over time, his confidence grew and he became a young man unafraid to hold a view and make it known. The acerbic wit developed, a wit from which no one was safe.
Peter once described our friendship as a seasonal one. In the winter, he played football, initially with Raheny Boy, then with the UCD League of Ireland team and eventually with Killester United. He loved his football, a hand me down from his late father who was an Irish Amateur international. From his Dad, a love of cowboy films was also passed on. The seasonal nature of our friendship meant that I rarely if ever saw him play football and he equally rarely saw me with an oval ball. That was the way of our lives but come April we would meet up in the nets in Clontarf and try teach ourselves how to bat all over again. Now, I really wish I had seen him play, if only to discover if he was as good as he told me he was. I fancy he was, complete honesty was one of his prime traits.
The UCD team that he played with was an outstanding one, run by the much loved Doc O’Neill. Even during this period Peter recognized that something was not quite right. He told me in recent years that he could remember making runs during games and having to stop as his heart began to beat uncontrollably. Today the Leagie of Ireland is a fantastic product but the league that Peter played had adjectives such as hard, brutal and physical attached to it and was some way away from being classified as a product. A little while back UCD FC had a reunion. He was reluctant to go, it took some gentle persuasion from Trish to get him into the room. In the end, he really enjoyed it, catching up with peers and realising that they had always rated him. He would at times big himself up as a joke but in reality he was extremely modest. There was a glow to him after that reunion, having received validation from peers that he rated himself. He finished his football career with Killester United, close to his original family home and there he was revered. League of Ireland players often dropped down the leagues but they rarely came with such a positive attitude but Killester still acknowledge that Peter came with the best attitude.
Being of a similar age we were generally in the same age cricket group and given that the numbers playing were small, we often played up the teams, often along with big brother Canice. They were simpler times, if he wasn't playing a game, Peter would invariably be found in the nets in Castle Ave along with a group of feral youngsters playing endless games of stump tests, the local pick up game for cricket. Aside from being a remarkably efficient way of learning the skills of cricket it was a game which unashamedly endorsed and encouraged cheating. It's safe to say Peter was a master.
Working at the game, surviving, in some cases it was really was a case of survival, learning the finer points, thanks to the great Brian Bunworth, this gang almost by chance became cricketers. By his late teenage years, Peter had transformed from the small kid to a really quite tall man and he was moving through the teams. In 1981, we made our first team debuts together, a mid week refix against Phoenix in the Park. The news of the day was actually across the water where Diana Spencer was marrying the future King of England. Looking at the scorecard recently, I noticed that we both scored our age that day and in a sign of things to come batted together for most of our respective innings. We lost by a street but we had started on a path which would lead to better days.
Clontarf 1983
Having begun together we were part of an overhaul of the first team in 1983 when we became permanent fixtures on the side. They were great days, young enough to be ambitious, naive enough to still be able to dream and good enough to survive, sometimes by the skin of our teeth. We became a gang of three, in a wonderfully happy environment fostered by Brendan Bergin. Alan McClean or going by his real name, Mighty, had emerged and the fun really began. The cricket was great and the apres cricket even better. The ageing team we joined had transformed into a good team and that good team became a great team by the early 90s. Peter missed a few seasons while in college travelling in Spain, Greece and the US but by the 90s he was finished college and teaching Irish and Economics at The High School. College was the making of him, he grew in confidence. If you believed him he spent most of his time playing pool but his finals provided a bit of drama when the night before he broke his arm in an Alan Murray cup match against The Hills. “Serves him right for playing back to Matt Dwyer” an unsympathetic Enda was heard to mutter. He completed his exams with the help of a scribe and soon he was teaching in Rathgar.
This was where he spent his career until his early retirement some years ago. His time at The High School was not without incident. Himself and Mick Kirby defied all the odds and managed to persuade the school management that a football team was not going to signal the end of the world. It was a brave move by these two teachers and one that the footballers hugely appreciated. He had rules however, he told the players that he would not accept them arguing with the ref and if they did so they could expect to be replaced immediately. Many years later watching him play in a final for Killester United I witnessed this same insistence on sportsmanship when he took a teammate aside and let him know that his turning on the ref was not acceptable. As he would often say, the ref has the same right as the players to be useless. The other major incident in High School was a happy one when he managed to catch the eye of the Home Ec teacher. So Ms Bergin and Mr P as he was known, became an item. Actually before he was Mr P he was known as Trendy Prendy by the students. Well that gave his friends back in Clontarf a laugh, of course perhaps the students were being ironic.
Trendy Prendy?
It's fair to say that having worked with Pete, Trish knew what she was getting into. Arguably she might not have expected that he would leave his own wedding reception albeit temporarily but at least he did so with her sayso. They settled in Collinswood just up the road from Peter's childhood home in Killester but the travel from there to Rathgar in 1990s Dublin was just too much, particularly with a young Conor. The southside move to Churchtown was inevitable.
Through sport, you see people as they really are. Not just the highs but inevitably the lows, which come thick and fast as you try to get to grips with a game such as cricket that at times seems to exist to challenge human emotions. We were a close enough group to recognize the bad days and provide support. Peter was a huge support on those bad days. I can clearly remember a day in Cabra where we were both sitting in the changing room having failed, again. Both wanting to hide in a corner and cry. Instead, Peter dragged me out and we sat down in the corner of the ground licking our wounds and getting over ourselves. Cabra provided another day to remember or maybe forget when we both ended up in the Mater A&E within minutes of each other. Happy Days!
Cricket was the context of our relationship, it was where it started and where it developed. Opening bats often have a different relationship to others in the team, they are as Brian Bunworth used to say going out of the trenches, over the top and into the great unknown, at 1pm every Saturday. It's lonely and hard at times, exhilarating at others. Neither of us would have had it any other way. It takes a particular mentality to open. An acceptance that there will be good days, bad days and very bad days. You spend time together in the middle and on the sidelines when your bit is done and the prima donnas finally decide to take to the stage. We walked a lot, laps and laps of cricket fields. I'm not the most gregarious of characters so Pete would take the lead most times. Subjects ranged widely “ one large shared interest and a number of minor ones” was how he put it. Books were a minor one. He was very widely read, I less so. “William Trevor, Fools of Fortune, I think you'd like that” a couple of weeks later “Elmore Leonard, have you ever tried him?” In this gentle manner, my bookcases began to expand, even now I look at my books and see names like Pete Dexter, Paul Auster, W.P. Kinsella, Ed McBain, all names that were suggested on these long walks around the cricket fields of Ireland.
With his great friend Alan McClean and Johnny Daly
When the Clontarf programme began as a fundraiser, the late Fergal Tobin took responsibility for the content and Peter was one of those he asked to write columns. His occasional articles were always eagerly awaited, his “Fielding” piece is a beaut. It was clear that he could write and Fergal, himself an editor for Gill and MacMillan as well as a published historian, encouraged his efforts. He wrote his first book in 2003, a crime caper titled When Kindness Fails, a title which Trish came up with. The Romanian Builder, a children's book inspired by a young Joe's relationship with a builder working on the family home, followed. For school, Peter wrote a musical play which Fiona and myself attended. It was great fun, hugely enjoyed by both cast and audience but afterwards Peter felt that there was more to this story. The story explored themes of grief, dance, of growing up but crucially of bullying. Even though this book is aimed at teens it is a book worth seeking out. He titled it Dancing in the Dark as Jessie, the young girl at the centre of the story, is part of a dance team. O’Brien Press who published the book in 2010 were worried that a male author on the front might restrict its audience so it was published under the name P.R. Prendergast. We wondered what he knew about dance mind you having witnessed some pretty dreadful moves in his earlier life. This man was unable to stay away from sport for long and included in the narrative is a huge amount of sporting wisdom. If you have encountered him at the Wall in Pembroke or on a boundary rope somewhere you will definitely recognise the voice of James in this wonderful book. It is still available from the O’Brien Press website in either physical form or ebook, I couldn't recommend it more. He wrote another story for Orla “The Smartest Dog Ever” which remains an unpublished gem.
Over the years he has written terrific pieces on cricket. I would get a message telling me that he had sent me a new one by email. Attaching a word document to the email with the message such as “ Here you go laddy, another masterpiece”. And they were, his understanding of sport and people made each one fresh and relevant while the quality of his writing made them page turners. His pieces for CricketEurope, Cricket Leinster, the Nighwatchman were universally enjoyed and in recent days, as the cricket community reflected, these writings kept on coming up in conversation.
Pete was a very fine cricketer. His best years were in the early 90s when he learnt to handle the health issues that plagued him. For years he would play beautifully only to find a way to get out. Now we know that fatigue was often the reason for these lapses. A century is any batsman’s primary personal target but this evaded him. He edged closer all the time but couldn't get over the line. If he was frustrated he hid it well. He was getting close, 80s grew into 90s. In 1991 he hit 97 against Old Belvedere but the barrier was breached the following year and when he plonked the late Anton Weir into the veranda in Castle Avenue, we celebrated one of the most popular debut senior 100s. He would score 2 more 100s during his playing time, learning along the way to manage his body. One of my favourite cricket memories is of an Irish Senior Cup game away in Brigade. Included in the home side was the Irish capped bowler, Paul Wallace. A fine bowler his left arm outswing was always a challenge particularly to left handers which of course included Pete. In the pavilion sitting beside Enda and myself was a local supporter and when Paul's first 4 balls of an over snuck past the edge of Pete's bat, the supporter became increasingly agitated. “He's not good enough to play Paul” he muttered. Enda laid his hand on his arm and gently told him to keep watching. Well the next 2 balls soared over the mid wicket boundary and all I could see in the corner of my eye was Enda chuckling away as the local looked on in disbelief. He scored a brilliant 88 that day in a thrilling victory.
I batted a lot with Peter so if you could indulge me for a moment, I would like to highlight a couple more memories. The first was in 1990 when in the Wiggins Teape final in the third week of September we set a club record for the opening wicket in winning by 10 wickets. The bit that stands out for me is that with the win just one hit away Peter played out an inexplicable maiden, inexplicable to myself and the umpire Liam Keegan anyway. The game finished the next over and we walked off delighted with the convincing win and our partnership. The following Thursday Karl Johnson of the Irish Press published a report on the game and noted how Peter had played out a maiden to allow the winning of the game to be in my hands. I was dumbfounded, how had I not recognised this selfless act of sportsmanship. I still feel embarrassed that I did not acknowledge this act at the time but it highlighted the way Peter played. The other memory is of another final in 1992 in the Phoenix when Peter played in one of his finest innings. His score of 57 might indicate that I have this wrong but scores rarely tell the full story. While others fretted and panicked at the other end, he serenely batted, fluent and calm, keeping his own nerves on the big occasion, under wraps. His calmness set the tone that great day. Earlier that morning his gift for lightening the mood came to the fore when his player profiles in the match day programme provided a much needed release from the stress of the big match day.
1992 cup final
Family was hugely important to Peter. He marveled as he told us a story last week of how his mother visited him when he was ill in the Mater, not so unusual so far but this was a time of snow and in typical Dublin fashion, public transport ground to a halt. Angela walked from Killester to the hospital every day, trudging through the snow to see her youngest and then walked home again. Every day. He often reminded me that his mother was the source of the family brains having topped the list of Leaving Cert results. His siblings Terry, Kathy and Canice were a source of enormous pride in their respective roles in Bord pleanala, Art and Economics. A gifted family.
His own family was an enormous source of pride. As we grew older together our conversations most often centered on our children and their current exploits. Always interested in my two before updating me on his threes’ exploits. Parents of sporting children can be a different breed, Pete kinda rewrote the rule book or simply operated by his own rules. Rather than push them forward he allowed them to find their own way, a lot less easy than it sounds. Colin Bell was the Irish football manager as Orla made her way through underage football squads, he wanted her to come train with the senior team. Peter politely declined the offer. Similarly the coach of the senior cricket team, Aaron Hamilton wondered if Orla would like to come and bowl to the senior internationals? “Only if she gets a bat too, Prendergasts are no mugs” was the response to him. Push him on this point and he would tell you “if she is good enough to play at that level, then she will get there in time, but there is no rush. Let her enjoy playing”. The youngest of three sports mad kids, Orla I’m sure would recognise the benefit of having two elder brothers who gave no quarter, Peter relished in letting them at it and in the same way that he had discovered the game in the Clontarf nets, his children worked things out in the cul de sac outside their house and in the nets of their club.
Two parents who keep their children on an even keel, it’s what we all aspire to. Peter led in their sporting lives but Trish remained the backbone of the family. When early retirement became a necessary route forward, Peter worried about the practicalities. They spoke with advisors and worked out a plan. But Home Economics teacher,Trish practised what she taught and had been proactive through the years. “I always assumed that was her running away money” he told me, only partly joking I fancy but also a sense of thankfulness that someone in the house was thinking ahead, no doubt.
A short 14 months ago, I was working in a class with a teacher who was a High School past pupil, a former Irish student of Peter and also Conor’s babysitter while they still lived on the northside. “I wonder if Mr. P would come in to talk to our school on World Book Day?” she asked one morning. I agreed to ask but I didn't really know if it was something that he would be comfortable with. Instead, I got an immediate response to my message. “For Kate, of course I will”. For a whole school day he came into our school and talked to the kids about books, about writing, how he came up with the ideas for stories and he read those stories. Inevitably, the discussion moved into sport as the children had been forewarned that he was not only the father of an international cricketer but also a former League of Ireland footballer himself. I witnessed another side of Peter that day, one in a comfort zone in front of a class of students, his ease of conversation with them, finding the correct level to engage them. Not only did the kids love him, the staff, themselves an outstanding group of teachers, were enthralled. What a day it was and a nice bonus that Kate and myself gained some credit for being a friend of this man. Win, win.
In the end it all happened so quickly. The first clue came maybe a month or so beforehand. There was a noticeable change in the tone of his medical updates to me. Previously he played the part of mild irritation when he had to go back into hospital for tests or procedures. Now the tone was more urgent. I think he wanted me to know that this was serious but without actually saying those words. One one occasion I commented that I was worried about him but again an immediate response came in an attempt to dispel such worries. “I've been here before” he said “they'll sort me out”. He always had great confidence and regard for the team who looked after him but options were narrowing.
Late on Tuesday 6th May, I spotted a new message arriving, it was headed “Deryck” and immediately I understood that there were no funny stories incoming. Just a week later, on a school trip in Dublin city I got a call from Alan McClean, Peter had asked that Al and myself go in to see him, 5pm that evening was his suggestion. So instead of an evening in Christchurch, I went off to the hospice with Alan. Problem, they couldn't find his name on the list and after 15 minutes of searching we realised we were in the wrong place, he was still back at the hospital. We passed on the message to Pete and told him we were now finally on our way and why we were delayed. “Laurel and Hardy” came the immediate quip back. In such a grim situation, it was a great conversation starter!
Back at the hospital, we spent just over an hour with Peter. In his final moments, we laughed a lot, we cried an equal amount, re-lived stories. There was some difficult topics raised. He explained how his experiences had informed his sporting and working life in trying to always make sure that people were included. There was so much, his regard for Brendan Bergin, who had brought us together into Senior Cricket, he spoke of what he learned from Brennie, his ability to bring people along with him, his absolute integrity but also his sense of fun. He spoke of his family, of Trish, how she had minded him for so long “like an egg” he said as we realised the unintentional play on his old nickname The Egg, earned for some iffy behaviour in the Clontarf suburbs in the mid 80s.
He spoke of his pride in Conor making a new life in Spain, how much he loved watching football games with him despite the distance apart, of Joe and how he knew he would thrive in his dream job, how working in the sport that he loved so much would be the making of him, he was confident. Of Orla, his pride in how she conducts herself as she performs on a world stage as much in her clear sporting abilities. People often talk of the privilege of spending time with someone in their final moments, I didn't understand it, but I do now. The breadth and depth of 70 minutes of the continuous conversation is something I will hold with me. In the middle of these chats, a nurse came in to give him some medication, the grace and dignity that Peter afforded the nurse is something both Mighty and myself commented upon as in the days after as we mused on all the topics that we had covered. At the worst of times, he was still prepared to be kind and respectful.
A new season has just begun, it will be a strange one. I know that when we visit Sydney Parade that we will look to find the familiar face and it won't be there. But as we walk those familiar boundary ropes, we will remember a good man.
Goodbye my friend
