How to find a happy place

Graham Thorpe celebrates his match-winning hundred in Barbados © Getty Images

Graham Thorpe is not an archetypal political activist. Quiet, unassuming and hindered by an ever so slight lisp, he hardly seems one to be making a public stand. The donning of a black armband in a crucial World Cup match would simply not be Thorpe's thing. But get him on the subject of family law in the UK and he is transformed.

Passionate, knowledgeable and very angry, Thorpe has clear views on how the courts treat fathers when parents battle over the custody of their children. The action group Fathers 4 Justice recently gained a swathe of publicity with protestors climbing bridges dressed as superheroes, fictional not cricketing, to highlight their cause. The group is arguing for a change in parental law that will give fathers and grandparents rights of access to see their children. Thorpe is a keen watcher of events.

His own experiences of family courts are painful and he knows to his cost how a father can be denied having a relationship with his children. Since his divorce from Nicky, Thorpe has had only brief contact with his children Henry and Amelia. Fathers 4 Justice have found their most high-profile supporter. "I don't blame these guys who are climbing bridges and protesting about fathers' rights," he says. "They know the law doesn't really work. It works if both parties get on well but that doesn't always happen. If the mother wants to stop the father having a relationship with the children, then you have got big problems. You can go to court and she can say in front of the judge that she won't do it again - until the next time, that is. I've had two birthdays, Father's Day and Christmas all ruined. I would arrange to see the kids and then I'm told no. It's sad because, if the roles were reversed, I wouldn't do it."

Thorpe's problems have long been public knowledge and before he left to tour the West Indies he was again in the headlines. A Boxing Day fracas with his ex-wife's new partner ended with Surrey police being called. He finds it hard to contain his anger and his voice drops to a barely audible level as he relives the incident.

"All I was asking was for five minutes with them while they opened their presents," he says. "I spoke to Henry on the phone in Sri Lanka and he said `I'll see you on Boxing Day' but I go round and can't see them. On Boxing Day some other bloke, who my wife ran off with, was telling me that I can't see my children and to get off a property that I paid five hundred grand for. What's that about? I hope that one day she will see what she has done and put the children through. I don't want it to affect them, which is why I take the stress.

"Henry is seven and it must be hurting him. I still gave them the Christmas presents even though I haven't seen them for two months. I left them on the drive. I don't even know if they opened them."

In his younger days he was uneasy speaking in public - perhaps he was self-conscious about his lisp - but now he speaks freely of his personal life and has become a happy interviewee. Maybe he finds interviews cathartic. "It's all in the papers. It would be nice for my children to grow up knowing that Daddy is an England player. One day when they're older they will be able to see that at least it didn't all end on that shitty day at Lord's against India. They'll know that I did care, that I came home from India, that I gave up touring, that I did everything I could. I've learned a lot through this. I won't let anything affect me."

Thorpe's experiences have changed him. His awareness of others has heightened - he now asks how things are in your life - and perhaps the hard times have helped him gain a new maturity. Whatever the outcome he has certainly learned about life away from the cricketing bubble. Before the tour to the Caribbean he enjoyed a lengthy holiday in Thailand with his new girlfriend Amanda, visiting her family in Bangkok and travelling off the beaten track.

"You get only one crack at life and, when I was down for that year, I realised I might not come out of it. I'm not the only person who has gone through it but it is a scary feeling when you have gone through so much and you think there is no way out. All my time and energy went into my private life and everyone told me I was doing the wrong thing and I should move on but it took me a good year and a half for that to sink in. You have to get to a happier place. Life is not as straightforward as you think but now I have reached that happier place."

That happier place even includes touring. The pain of splitting with his family for six months of the year effectively ended his marriage but with a settled place in the England middle order he is a smiling member of the touring party in the Caribbean. He has fitted in to Michael Vaughan's fitter and leaner cricketing model and the modern-day play, travel, play tours are to his liking.

'The greatest knock I ever played' - Thorpe's comeback innings at The Oval in 2003© Getty Images

"The touring is certainly different," he says. "The culture of the team is different. There are a lot of young guys in the team, a lot more training, a lot more physical work. In a way the days just roll into one and it's just great to be playing again and I'm enjoying it. The tours are much more intense. We barely had time to catch our breath after Jamaica and we are back into a Test three days later. We had a celebration after the game but next day our feet were back on the ground and we were focusing on the next game. Which was good in a way. It breeds a good attitude from the players. You can see areas where England have got a lot stronger."

With his pal Nasser Hussain and Surrey team-mate Mark Butcher, Thorpe is one of the tour party elders. "Oh, you can't have Butchy in the senior player group," Thorpe says, laughing. "He's only 31. He's not in the 33-plus bracket." At 34 Thorpe sees his role to help nurture the inexperienced players and he seems to have a healthy relationship with the PlayStation generation, as Hussain called the younger tourists. "I feel like I'm my own person. I feel like I fit in, that I know everybody in the team, no problems at all," he says. "But I still like my own peace. When you work hard and train hard together with guys everybody needs to catch their own breath and have a little bit of time on their own and I can enjoy that as well. In the past that was sometimes a difficult thing. When you have things in your life that keep you occupied you tend not to think of the negative things. I feel quite content with myself and I'm enjoying the trip."

He takes time over his words as he tries to define what makes an international cricketer. "All I try and do is help the guys to become consistent. If they have bad days, then that's what they are, bad days. If you want to keep going you have to try and keep mentally level. Ultimately it's consistency that you search for as a cricketer."

Thorpe's 11-year-career testifies to his own consistency. Only twice has he lost it. From January 1998 until he skipped the tour to South Africa in 1999-2000 he averaged 28 from 14 Tests. His second hiatus, from May 2002 until his emotional return at The Oval last year, was precipitated by injury, the death of Ben Hollioake and a miserable exit at Lord's against India. Now, he has returned to his role as England's reliable performer, defiantly improvising on the subcontinent and making a dogged 90 in Trinidad. "It's about understanding how to cut out a 60-70-Test career," he says. "If you do that now you'll probably play 100-plus with the amount of cricket that's played. You want young players to get the balance right. To create their own little highlights. You can cut out your own little niche in a cricket team and go and achieve something."

And what of the future? Is Graham Thorpe here to stay? It is a question every England fan will have asked since that comeback hundred at The Oval last year and the man himself does not know the answer, though he says he is in the "last quarter" of his career. "I never thought I would come back and play cricket at this level," he says. "It could have been so different. I'll do my very best to enjoy it. Just to be here is a huge success. I feel the pressure to do well. I wake up any morning I'm batting and feel that pressure. You're out there on the stage and you want to perform. When the day comes where I'm not good enough I'll be able to deal with it in a better way than I would have done three or four years ago. I'm just a bit more of a realist now. I still believe I can produce the goods and, when that little bit goes out of you, then that's the time to retire. That time might come in a year, two years, six months. It might be in six weeks.

"I don't know how long I will be around for. It has been a lot harder coming back this time. But I enjoy it as much as I ever have done and I would like to see it out this time. I would like to play for 10 years but my body is the thing." Thorpe's back, which cut short his last tour to the Caribbean, is his particular worry. "The work I've been able to put in has helped me. There are times when you wake up with a creak in your back and you think how am I going to get that loose in two hours? I've never got on my high horse about playing for England but now I'm appreciating it. I just judge it every six months. Summer to winter."

Recently Thorpe has been a stranger to Australian bowlers. The word from the Australian dressing room on the last Ashes trip was that he was running scared. If Thorpe can keep body and mind together for a little longer, the 2005 Ashes may remind them just how courageous he is.

There were a lot of issues I wanted to bury during the match but I knew there was every chance I would fail. I tried to tell myself that it was just a game of cricket. But a few days before I was thinking, `Can I do this, am I good enough and can I walk out in front of all those people and put my neck on the line?' Making a fool of myself. That was my biggest fear.

Before the innings I felt more nervous than any time in my career. I was a young cricketer again having to cope with my feelings and nerves. I remember when Butchy was out I was putting my helmet on and reminding myself to breathe. I was saying to myself `Breathe, breathe, breathe' all the way down the steps. I got a great reception. I heard a few people shouting `Go on Thorpey' and that was it. I was determined to work as hard as I could to get through the first few overs.

My parents were in the crowd and I could see them in the Bedser Stand. I thought it would be nice for them if I did well. First ball I got an inside edge on to my pad. If I hadn't nicked it there would have been a big shout. Next ball was the same line and I fell all over it and managed to get it down to fine-leg. It was all pretty scrappy but I felt pleased I ended that day.

I went back home that night with Amanda and had some dinner and a glass of wine. She was coming to watch the next day with a group of friends. It was the first time she had ever watched a cricket match.

I never thought of getting a hundred until I got to 94. The realisation suddenly hit me. On 98 I made my mind up that wherever it was pitching outside off stump I was going to play a shot at it. They had no one on the boundary and I squirted it through backward point. I had this huge rush of shivers down my spine, especially when I touched down for the first and knew I was going to make it home. It erased many things and was the proudest moment of my career. I should have celebrated with a Klinsmann dive. But I wanted some dignity. It will always stand out as the greatest knock I ever played and I will never beat it, even if I got the world record.