Mike Brearley OBE
On the face of it, an unexpected choice of guest with which to end our 2023-24 season. As all cricket afficionados will know, Mike Brearley captained Cambridge University, Middlesex and England. He captained the international side in 31 of his 39 Test matches, winning 18 and losing only 4. Yet in his retirement he has been far from unoccupied. He is now a psychoanalyst, psychotherapist and motivational speaker – gifts, one might well think, not so very far removed from the requirements of a team sportsman (the Australian cricketer Rodney Hogg described Brearley as having ‘a degree in people’). He is also a passionate music lover and amateur clarinettist. His choice of music this evening is that of a cultured man and passionate musician. Born in Harrow and educated at the City of London School (where his father Horace, himself a first-class cricketer, was a master). At St John’s College, Cambridge he combined captaining his university’s side while reading the Classical and Moral Sciences tripos. This evening he is interviewed by his friend and cricket enthusiast, Martin Neary.
