Harold 'Dickie' Bird obituary: Legendary cricket umpire and national treasure dies at 92

The late Queen was a huge fan, Prime Ministers invited him to lunch, women hung their bras on his statue, and Sir Ian Botham thought he was "barking mad".

International umpire Dickie Bird, who has died aged 92, was arguably cricket's greatest personality in an age when big characters, rather than money or technology, were central to the sport. It is nearly 30 years since Bird officiated at his final Test match but his legend lives on thanks to the respect he earned over a 25-year umpiring career for his ability, fairness and famous eccentricity. "'Ave lost me marbles!" he once told players with his usual self-deprecating smile as he scrambled on his hands and knees after dropping the glass orbs he used to count each ball in an over.

But he was so much more than a punchline. Yorkshire County Cricket Club yesterday recalled him as a "first-class cricketer for Yorkshire and Leicestershire, until his career was cut short by injury and he forged his role as an umpire.

"Over a distinguished career, he officiated in 66 Test matches and 69 One Day Internationals, including three World Cup finals - earning the admiration of players and fans alike for his integrity, humour, and unmistakable style," said the club.

"Dickie Bird became a national treasure, known not only for his umpiring excellence but also for his eccentricities and warmth."

Former Prime Minister David Cameron echoed those sentiments, adding: "Farewell friend." While broadcaster Piers Morgan called him "the greatest and most legendary umpire in cricket history".

Harold Dennis 'Dickie' Bird was born in April 1933 in Barnsley, Yorkshire, in an area where there were no fewer than 70 coal mines in a 15-mile radius but his father, James, who worked on the same coal face at Monk Bretton from the aged of 13 to 65, was determined his son would not do the same.

Dickie once recalled: "My father worked in an 18-inch seam. Every day. He went in on his stomach and came back out on his stomach after working on the coal face all day long with a pick and shovel."

The father of Dickie's lifelong friend Sir Michael Parkinson, who was also a miner, at Grimethorpe Colliery, took the same view.

Dickie recalled: "My father said to me, as Michael Parkinson's did to him, 'You are not going down the mine.' Dad said, 'You will play sport for your living.'"

And young Dickie loved sport. From the age of five he would regularly sit on his father's shoulders watching Barnsley football club and as he grew up was good enough at football to play inside forward for the Barnsley youth team himself.

A knee injury at 15 curtailed any hopes of a soccer career but, in any case, he dreamed of playing for Yorkshire cricket club He would hone his skills at Barnsley Cricket Club, which is where he first met fellow aspiring cricketer, Michael Parkinson, and they were soon joined by future England batsman Geoffrey Boycott.

Shortly before Parkinson died two years ago Dickie reminisced with him on the phone about those days "remembering things we had done, playing together at Barnsley Cricket Club when we opened the innings and Freddie Trueman played against us".

"Trueman clean bowled me," he said. "Parky was at the non-striker's end and he laughed. Trueman then turned and said to Parky, 'What thou laughing for? Thou'll be next!'"

Dickie, who claimed to have a technique to rival Boycott but was prone to nerves, achieved his dream of playing for Yorkshire and once scored a career-best 181 not out, while the regular opening batsman was away playing for England. But he was dropped for the next match. He went on to play for Leicestershire, and later Paignton, but his 181 - a career best - was one of only two centuries in 93 first class appearances and he retired at the age of 32 with an average of 20.71.

Fortunately for him and the cricketing world, the nerves that had hampered his batting career would never extinguish the happiness with which he umpired, though it was a well-known trait of his to regularly fret over the light and the possibility of rain.

He joined the umpiring circuit in 1970 and later recalled: "I always said when I got on to the first-class umpires list that I was going to smile and sign every autograph for every kid, even after I'd had a tiring day of seven hours in the field. At close of play, I'd line them up and sign every one."

He had the same time for the players, defusing any on field friction with a timely and amusing quip, or stern word, deftly handing characters who other umpires found trying, and being scrupulously fair.

He was notably reluctant to give batsmen out leg before wicket (LBW) unless it was screamingly obvious, and would not tolerate any bowling he regarded as "intimidatory".

Sir Ian Botham once claimed his key skills were a sense of humour, a way of talking to the players which bred respect, and added, "without doubt he is barking mad".

In an umpiring career spanning 25 years, he officiated a record 66 Test matches and 69 one day internationals, including the first three world cup finals, and as well as his humour, fans loved the way that he seemed dogged by minor calamities.

He had to take the players off for a waterlogged pitch on a fine summer's day at Headingley in 1988 after water bubbled up from the drains below the outfield, and at Old Trafford in 1995 he stopped play when sunlight reflected off neighbouring greenhouses.

"Rain and bad light have followed me around all my life," he once said.

He was awarded an MBE in 1986. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once invited him to 10 Downing Street and John Major, an avid cricket fan, later invited him to lunch, though Dickie was so worried about being late he drove through the night and arrived at Chequers by 7am when Major was still in bed. They ended up having breakfast as well as lunch.

Tony Blair also invited him to Number 10 a year after Dickie had been given a guard of honour by the players at his final Test match at Lords in 1996 but for the patriotic Yorkshireman, who said his MBE and OBE, the latter awarded in 2012, meant more to him than his life, there was an even prouder association.

He had no fewer than 29 meetings with the late Queen and he recalled: "We corresponded with each other. I had a letter from her a fortnight before she died. She talked about my health... 'How are you keeping?' I used to write back and say, 'You've got to keep going Ma'am. You've got to get there. 100 if you can.'"

He said his proudest moment was when he was invited to lunch with Her Majesty in 1990.

"I got the early train from Wakefield and I arrived at the gates of Buckingham Palace at 8.45am. My appointment was at 1pm so I sat in a little coffee shop for four hours. The Queen laughed when I told her and said, 'You had better have a drink!'

"Prince Edward joined us, we had a magnificent lunch, and then it was just the Queen and I in the lounge all afternoon. She had a lovely sense of humour. We talked about cricket and horse racing. She said, 'We think the world of you and we think you do a good job.' That were the best day of my life."

King Charles, too, made a point of visiting the statue of Dickie that has stood in Barnsley town centre since 2009. The statue was placed higher onto a plinth in 2013 and Dickie once smiled as he explained: "The women were hanging their bras around it. Some of them were leaving their telephone numbers! They didn't harm it - it was all in good fun."

If the numbers were meant for Dickie they were misplaced. He was married to cricket.

Dickie once said: "I've had girlfriends and I nearly married twice. But I never married because in cricket you are never at home. I thought it would never work. It would have been wonderful to have a lad and watch him play. I missed that. But you can't have everything. I gave myself to cricket and it has given me a real good life."

Such was his popularity that, even after his retirement from umpiring, his autobiography sold more than a million copies. After suffering a stroke in 2012 he got a new lease of cricketing life when he was asked to become president of Yorkshire Cricket Club between 2014 and 2016 and they won back-to-back County Championships in those two summers.

He never made it to the age of 100, as he had hoped, but he will always be remembered by cricket fans. Having umpired at the first Cricket World Cup in 1975, and been 'relieved' of a number of players and umpires outfits during the pitch invasion that followed the West Indies' 17-run victory, Dickie later recalled how he was on a bus in south London a year later and noticed the conductor wearing a white hat just like one he had had.

When he asked, the conductor told him: "Man, haven't you heard of Mr Dickie Bird? This is one of his hats. I took it off his head at the World Cup Final...we all ran onto the field and I won the race."

The players of the day might have been superstars, but Dickie Bird was a true cricketing icon.