Ray Gravell

Last night on BBC Wales TV there was a programme about Ray Gravell who played rugby for Wales and The British Lions and who later became a sports commentator, an interviewer, not just of sportsmen, and an actor. There had, a few years back, been a slim possibility of my meeting him.
A play I written for a competition (it won first prize, by the way), "Horseplay", attracted the attention of an actor/director who thought he might turn it into a film. We re-wrote the work as a film script and he began looking for people to invest money in the project of filming it. It never happened. But one day in conversation with the actor/director he mentioned Ray Gravell's name: he said he was a friend of his and that he might be interested in playing a part in the film.
"I didn't know he acted," I said. "O yes, he's a very good actor," he said.
I had seen him play rugby years ago and had seen him doing work on TV and I got to see that yes, indeed, he was a very good actor. Also he would have been wonderful in the main role of the play, a rugby club secretary devoted to his players who gradually loses patience with their extremely base behaviour, especially when three are accused of rape, and who sides with the rape victim against "the boys" to bring them to justice.
Well, the film never got made and recently, after serious illnesses and operations, Ray Gravell died.
I couldn't help feeling that I wished he had live just a bit longer to see, today, Wales beat England in an electrifying game. He'd have been on his feet yelling with glee and bear-hugging everyone near him - including English supporters.