The day before Jack Gold suffered his first stroke and collapsed in Alexandra Park, north London, last September, he was his usual warm, cheerful, self on the tennis court.
Between his strong backhand strokes from the baseline, and his controlled drop shots, he enriched any game of tennis, sharing a new witty anecdote, or remembering an old one. With a mixture of glee, frustration and anger, he would recount the follies of Labour politicians, the absurdities of small-minded bureaucrats, and the latest example of corruption in public life. We called him Jack the Chop because he had the kind of outrageous chop shot that was more martial arts than tennis. His sense of fair play extended to outlawing fist-pumps, high-fives, cheers or anything vaguely self-congratulatory.
He was a voracious reader, keen to share his enthusiasm, or criticism, of the latest book he had read, generously offering to lend it to us. Playing with Jack (and our other much-missed partner, the actor Barry Jackson) was more like an eccentric version of BBC2’s Late Review than a tennis match, as he filled us in on the latest play he had seen at the Royal Court, what he had learned at life-drawing that week, ditto his philosophy class, the standard of work being produced by students at the National and London Film School, where he guest lectured, the Hemingways he was re-reading for the nth time and the Old Testament he was reading for the first (“great stories but that God’s an unforgiving bastard”). When he wasn’t chatting about politics and arts, it would be sport – Man United, Serena’s chances at Wimbledon (he forgave Serena her tantrums), Andy Murray’s gracelessness (he didn’t forgive Murray’s his.) Occasionally, we’d break off for some tennis.
Jack possessed wonderful human qualities – combining personal warmth with a sharp intellect. He devoured life. Family, friends, work, culture, sport and politics, he found time for everyone and everything.
