Des Lynam and Jimmy Hill appeared on TV screens throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Photo: BBC
Des Lynam sounds very excited. Or at least the coolest TV presenter of his or any other era comes close to sounding excited.
“It's like getting an old partnership back together,” he says. «Hill and Lynam: Wonderful.» He talks about his new book called Now Who's Talking, illustrated by none other than Briony Hill, the widow of his old Match of the Day sparring partner Jimmy Hill.
“It was wonderful,” he says of the process of working with Hill. “Of course, it brought back a lot of memories. When we were all working on Match of the Day, we were pulling something rotten out of Jimmy. Especially [Terry] Venables was ruthless. But Jimmy was such a kind soul, a wonderful person, it flowed into him. He might seem cocky, but he was the most generous person.»
The idea for the book — and the subsequent partnership — came about quite by accident, he says, one day during quarantine.
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“Out of the blue, absolutely. And it came from sitting around doing nothing, which is more or less what I've always been doing all my life. One day I was sitting in an armchair in the kitchen looking out into the back garden at two forty. Usually they are together, but in this case one was at one end of the garden, the other at the other. As if they had a fight. So I imagined what they said to each other, and it kind of mushroomed from there.»
Lynam and Hill were magnificent. friends, as well as colleagues at the BBC. Photo: Alami/Simon Duck
Over the next few months, he collected several dozen heart-to-heart conversations between animals. Rabbits, dogs, cats, foxes: a whole menagerie of imaginary chats. He calls them essays, but they are more like free-form poetry: short, whimsical, often very funny. Rose, his wife, advised him to look for a publisher. So he contacted the couple, who were full of enthusiasm.
“I received a wonderful letter from Austin Macaulay,” he says. “I had no idea if there was a market for this kind of thing. I didn't know if it was a children's book or what. And frankly, they have no idea either. But they thought it would be nice to illustrate it.» It was originally planned that Lynam's grandchildren would paint pictures.
«It didn't work,» he says of his eight and year-old grandchildren. “Then one day I was on the phone with Briony about something else, she asked what I was doing, I told her about these little essays and she said read them to me. I did so, and she burst out laughing, and then said that she would like to illustrate them.”
In her youth, Hill was a keen artist and published a book of her garden drawings.
“I think Jimmy liked my paintings,” she recalls. “He was definitely behind me, encouraging me. When I published the book, I think he was thrilled.”
Portrait of Lynam by Briony Hill. Photo: Briony Hill. 
Portrait of Jimmy Hill by Briony Hill. Image Credit & Copyright: Briony Hill
But she gave in during her husband's protracted battle with illness and hasn't picked up brushes since his death in 2015. Until Leanne called.
“It was so great! with him,” says Hill, who has done over 300 illustrations for two volumes of Lynam's Tales. “They are so funny, the stories. I don't think Des understands how smart this is. He has such a light touch. It was a pleasure to work with him.”
Thus, an old friendship was revived. Des and Jimmy weren't just colleagues, they were buddies: the Lynams spent Christmas with the Hills. And the couple played a lot of golf together.
“We talked about everything on the course, although we seemed to be talking mostly about women,” Lynam says. “He was great company, but he was such a know-it-all. Couldn't help myself. I remember once we played golf in America during the 1994 World Cup. We came to the course, me, Jimmy and [Alan] Hansen. We needed another player to make a four and we met this guy at the club who said he would join us. It turned out that he was a scratch golfer, very hot, much better than any of us. He fired his first shot, and Hansen and I looked at each other, thinking we were in for a tough day. Jimmy, on the other hand, put his arm around the guy's shoulder and began teaching him how to improve his swing.”
But Lynam was struck by his golf partner's stoicism as illness began to cloud his vision.
“Once we were in the locker room, he took off his shirt, and I saw that he had a pouch. I didn't know anything about it. I said, Jimmy, do you have to play golf if you're not feeling well? He said that you need to move on. Nothing could stop him.»
Jimmy and Briony Hill in a garden in West Sussex, 2007. Photo: Jonathan Ollie. for the Telegraph
One of the consequences of Hill's death was that Lynam saw less of Briony.
“She wanted us to go to her house for Christmas after Jimmy died,” he recalls. “But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Too sad.»
Now, however, they are reunited, talking on the phone every day, exchanging ideas, coming up with new possibilities.
«I don't know where it will go from here»— Lynam says. “I have a novel that I wrote in a raffle, but it's probably for the best if it stays there. Maybe if those first two books sell, we could do a few more. Let's get a look». In the meantime, there was one question that both sides of the collaboration had to consider: what would Jimmy himself make of the new Lynam/Hill team?
“I know exactly what he would say. said he was still there to see the finished book,” Lynam says. «He would look at it and say, 'Now Des, you see where you went wrong.'
- Now Who's Talking by Des Lynam, illustrated by Bryony Hill, published Austin Macauley July 21.
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