To bask in the reflected glow of Eddie Butler’s talents was enough for us

“Greetings, Roberto.” Even when Eddie was just saying hello every word flowed more smoothly when he spoke – or wrote – them. And whether he was chatting with his colleagues in the press box, or delivering those impossibly brilliant, mellifluous television voiceovers, you wanted to hear more. Which, of course, is exactly how we all feel right now.

It is scant consolation that the bard of Monmouthshire packed so much into his 65 years. Rugby player, story teller, commentator, novelist, linguist … there was almost nothing he could not do when he put his mind to it. Not many have ever captained their country at rugby union, been a British & Irish Lion and then become a renowned broadcaster, rugby correspondent and fiction writer as well. Simply to bask in the reflected glow of his multiple talents was enough for the rest of us.

He was invariably modest with it, though, and unfailingly generous even to those of us who had not played for Pontypool in an era when men were men and visiting sides finished a distant second. Those “Pooler” sides were formidably hard-nosed and “Educated Edward” or “Bamber” as they called him (he had studied at Cambridge University) was not selected by accident.

If and when his eyes started to glitter, maybe after a couple of drinks or if someone was in danger of taking excessive liberties, the old steely edge could momentarily re-emerge.

It was all part and parcel of a multi-dimensional life. He grew up between the Usk and the Wye rivers but his grandfather was a steelworker in Scunthorpe and his father was a research manager at the nylon factory in Pontypool. Sometimes he and other “Pooler” players would train on Sunday mornings on the old tramways above Blaenavon and “change with the canaries in