Henry Blofeld was born in 1939, on the landed Norfolk estate where his family have lived since the 16th century. He attended Eton and then King’s College, Cambridge, despite not passing any A-Levels (“my family had been going to King’s forever”, he explained). Asked by an interviewer many years later what subject he studied, he thought for some time before responding: “I think it was history.”

He failed his Cambridge exams and dropped out. This, however, did not deter a merchant bank in London from taking him on at the persuasion of his uncle, a wealthy City financier. After a while, however, Blofeld began to get bored of that.

“A couple of my friends were writing about cricket,” he thought. “Why the hell shouldn’t I do likewise?”

At a cocktail party in Knightsbridge he met John Woodcock, cricket correspondent of The Times, who arranged for Blofeld to write some county reports, despite possessing no formal skills or training. And thus began the tale of Blowers, which ended at Lord’s on Saturday evening after a 45-year career, with a boundary lap of honour, a plate of lobster thermidor, and warm tributes from on and off the field.

It has been a good life, and an easy life too, as these things go. Naturally, Blofeld was self-deprecating to the last: “Listeners will be relieved to know that their chances of being told the right name of fielders have greatly increased,” he wrote. And this seems to sum up Blofeld’s broad and lasting appeal: a cherished broadcasting persona based on two parts upper-crust charm, one part winking incompetence.