All's well as Beefy finally declares

CRICKET/Interview with Ian Botham: Keith Duggandiscusses a new biography with feted cricketer, reveller, charity walker, and knight, Ian Botham

The magazine delivery man didn't quite rub his eyes and blink but still: you hardly expect to see a knight of the realm hanging around the trade entrance of a Manchester shopping mall on a chilly November tea-time. Ian Botham has, of course, changed since the epochal, gold-tinted Ashes series of 1981 but there is a comic hero immutability about the stock characteristics - the direct blue eyes and humorous smile and yes, the sheer athletic Beefiness of the man.

Standing with his hands burrowed into his denims and his leather pilot's jacket zipped tight against the cold was Beefy, silver flecks in his hair now but still the eternal schoolboy-on-detention of English cricket folklore who has made the journey from son of Yeovil to knight of Her Majesty without ever forgetting who he is.

"All right? Ah, National Geographic," Botham said affably, studying the packages.

"Dunno, mate," the man returned cheerfully as he heaved the parcels down from the truck. "I just deliver them."

Beefy nodded and grinned. If he hadn't been ushered inside for a book signing, there seemed a fair chance Botham would have flung the jacket aside to lend a hand with the magazines.

Getting stuck in has been his motif; firing ahead regardless - that most English of traits - has been the principle and engine that has led him towards feats of indelible brilliance at the wicket, to innumerable scrapes in life and to bulldozing through ambitious charity walks that have raised millions for charity.

It sustained him in producing a sporting biography that flies in the face of tradition in that it is uncomfortably honest and less than self-congratulatory.

Earlier in the evening, sitting in the players lounge at the deserted Old Trafford cricket ground, Botham had spoken of the pride and humility he felt at being able to present himself before the queen in October accompanied by Kath, his wife, and two of his grandchildren.

The popular image of Botham is of a sports star who spent his best years bending the rules and defying the politesse demanded by the stuffy dons of English cricket. But when it comes to the British monarchy, Botham is an absolutist and smoulders with patriotism when he explains why England should always remain Royalist.

"I believe we have lost enough of our traditions in this country. Other countries celebrate their heritage - we all celebrate your [ Ireland's] patron saint every year. And rightly so. It should be the same here. All this talk - I think if we hang the first three Republicans here, then the rest will get the message soon enough."

He laughs when he says this but there is enough conviction in Botham's voice that suggests that, if push came to shove, he would indeed act as Albert Pierrepoint on behalf of the Palace.

Botham's passion for the monarchy comes as a surprise to those of us who knew him only as the dyed-blond rampaging hero of England's sporting universe in the 1980s or as the constantly clowning captain of the flagship BBC quiz show, A Question of Sport.

Botham believes in treating people as equals. But he reserves the right to kneel before his queen. If it seems like a contradiction, then it is one of many. Botham does not sit easily in any neat category and, in his own life story, he presents a man who is funny, impatient, loyal, infuriating, selfish, blunt, fair-minded, hugely generous, massively energetic and, like all sporting greats, blinkered in his pursuit of the game.

If there is one hero in the book, then it is Kath, his wife, whom he talks of as strong and smart and having the patience of a saint.

"I think she enjoyed it," he says of her reaction to the book. "But she was surprised by some of what I put in there. She was surprised that I went that far."

His parents, Les and Marie, children of the uneasy 1930s, still hover at his shoulder and pepper his conversation. He talks of fishing with his Yeovil friends so unselfconsciously it takes a few moments for you to realise that by Eric, he means Clapton, who was a god of the guitar world roughly when Botham was beginning to turn in electric performances all over England's creases.

There is a picture of the pair of them walking on one of Botham's monster charity bashes, the cricketer ploughing on ruggedly, the musician looking wan at the prospect of the miles ahead.

"Yeah, we have been friends a long time," he mused. "We fish and shoot together. Right now, we are doing our books and touring - well, he did one tour, to New York and back. He just gave me a copy and I will know if he is telling the truth because I was there. Old Slow Hand - if there is a better guitarist, I have yet to see him. But yeah, I am quite happy on the fishing bank with my mates and it doesn't matter if it is Eric or my mates from home - and he is the same. He doesn't worry about that stuff."

Botham was one of the original icons used in the Fleet Street tabloid war, simultaneously lionised and savaged in the red tops, writing a column for the Sun on one page while on another page, the newspaper demanded he be axed for England's disastrous Ashes tour in Christmas of 1982. And yet he maintained a tender friendship with John Arlott, the erudite cricket writer and broadcaster and oenophile from the Guardian newspaper.

When Botham was a teenager playing for the Somerset seconds team, he was sent up to the BBC commentary box with Arlott's "luncheon basket", struggling not to lose his footing on the perilous gantry as he delivered the hamper of cold meats, cheeses, bread and four bottles of Beaujolais. Although it was just 10.30 in the morning, the broadcaster "got busy with the corkscrew" and thus began Botham's apprenticeship in wine.

Years later, Arlott and the Bothams had summer dwellings on the island of Alderney and like clockwork, the Bothams' phone would ring at six minutes past nine and Arlott's invitation never deviated. "Come on over. And bring your thirst with you."

Arlott died in 1991 and for years afterwards, Botham made a pilgrimage to his grave in Alderney along with his father-in-law, Gerry. They would open a bottle of something European, drink a couple of glasses and leave the cork in the grave. "And we weren't the only ones who did that, there might be dozens of corks. But he was a remarkable man."

Other things about Botham: he is the only cricketer to have graced the cover of Sports Illustrated but he has yet to visit New York city. He is highly fond of Pakistan yet once managed to offend the entire nation by quipping that it was the kind of country to send your mother-in-law for an all-expenses month-long holiday.

The charity walks have become extravaganzas - Botham ended up in a surreal war of words with French icon Brigitte Bardot, who (wrongly) believed the Englishman was overlooking the welfare of elephants that were used to drum up publicity for a walk across the Alps.

The original walking idea came after a chance stroll through a children's ward in a Taunton hospital in 1977 when he happened to see four kids sitting around a table playing Monopoly. They all had leukaemia and were gravely ill. Botham, then just 22, wrote a cheque for £50 on the spot and 30 years on, it is apparent he can still see those kids gathered around that board game.

"I can. I can still see them," he says quietly, toying with a bottle of Diet Coke. "They used to have a party in the hospital for kids like those while they were still well enough but there was a shortage of funds that year and the specialist told me it was cancelled.

"So the cheque was for the party. And we ended up sending a lot of cheques, Kath and I. But we were walking in the Lake District and talking about it and I just said: 'this is the way to go'. Just giving money was negative. So we decided on a walk. Kath thought I meant Leeds to Manchester, or something. And she ended up doing all the work and organising, apart from that first one."

Botham's first walk, from John O'Groats to Land's End, was pure novice stuff - Jimmy Greaves quipped that it would be the longest pub-crawl of all time. Botham hadn't the first notion about the rigours of walking and learned painfully, toiling in relative obscurity until Frank Bough and Selina Scott began broadcasting daily television updates to the nation.

At that, a powerful charitable juggernaut was created and Botham talks as passionately about the improvements in leukaemia treatment as his well-known cricket exploits.

But it was that hospital visit that moved him into his default response action - £50 was a fair amount of money to Botham back then: when he was first selected for England, he did not have a car.He thundered through the sport of cricket when it was beginning to become lucrative and his brilliance, longevity and commercial appeal eventually made for a fine lifestyle. But the beginning was a struggle, with young children and household chores and winter tours of flabbergasting length. Botham drank late and was enticed into brawls and batted away allegations of newspaper dope-smoking and beauty queens and was generally the vexation of the cricket establishment.

He is fierce about his friends, particularly Viv Richards and his old Somerset mentor, Brian Close, who was friends with Kath's parents. Close was an iconoclast and a hard man - as Eric Morecambe joked, "you know the cricket season has arrived when you hear the sound of leather on Brian Close."

"He sat us down when we decided to get married. I was 18 and Kath was 19. He went off at us, telling me I had my cricket career and warning Kath what that would be like and that she couldn't interfere. And we sat there. Finally he said: 'Anyway, Kath, he's not good enough for you.' I was thinking, 'Thanks, Closey'."

In ways, the advice was a premonition of the turbulent years ahead. When Botham finished up, playing for Durham against Australia in a low-key match, he writes thus of delivering his final ball: ". . . so as I turned at my mark to run in one last time, I unzipped my fly, hauled out the meat and two veg and ran to bowl with my old man dangling free."

It was an act of pure Botham tomfoolery and he was shrewd enough to ascertain that no photographer could capture the revelation. But when you consider the enormity of the moment - the end of one of the gilded cricketing careers belonging to the tradition dating back to WG Grace, it was a strange way to go out.

He first caused a stir on a perfect summer's day in Somerset in 1974 when he took a fast ball in the face from the West Indian spin bowler Andy Roberts, spat out broken teeth and batted 45 out of 70 on the last two wickets to win the game and then hit the beer, a hero in the Stragglers' Bar.

When he finished, over two decades later, he was perhaps England's best ever all-rounder. It was as though Botham was determined to deny the occasion of his exit any pathos. What is more, when he got back to the pavilion, there were just a small handful of supporters remaining and fellow players, eager for memorabilia, had ransacked his locker. Botham didn't even take his bag: he just walked out the gates without a backward glance.

"I had enough," he says evenly as the traffic crawls outside the darkened cricket ground. "I didn't even want to play that day but because it was Australia, I felt it was fitting. And it is true. I don't look back at all. I never have. So because of that, I was never into memorabilia. I kept a few medals. But any loser's medals, I gave away. I did buy some stuff belonging to Don Bradman and I think that is quite special. I would have loved to have done battle against Bradman. And it is nice to have that for my grandchildren. But I never look back."

Someone told Botham recently that instances of suicide among ex-cricketers were higher than in all other sports (The macabre fact is the subject of a 1990 book, Cricket Suicides, by David Firth). It did not surprise him: the camaraderie and surreal environment of the laconic winter tours to Australia or the West Indies or Pakistan left huge voids. They spoiled men. Botham's ability to keep on moving and his utter lack of nostalgia has kept him safe and happier than he ever was at his athletic best.

But for the purposes of his book, he has been prepared to look back, occasionally in anger but more often in wonder at a charmed and combustible life.

Later in the night, he will motor on to Northampton for a dinner reception. But as the shopping generation mingled with the hundreds of Botham aficionados waiting in the plush city shopping mall, Beefy moved among the people, signing books and happily cosying up for photographs. He will grow old gracefully but chances are he will continue to ruffle feathers, be it as the modern-day successor to Arlott in the commentary box or as a knight with no airs.

"I have to say what I honestly believe," he declares.

It has always been his batting style. And the dissenters can go hang.

Botham basics: Life and times

Born: November 24th, 1955, Cheshire.

Family: Married to Kathy. Son Liam, who was a professional cricketer and rugby player. Daughters Becky and Sarah.

Domestic Career: Joined Somerset in 1974 and resigned in 1985 in protest at the sacking of clubmates Viv Richards and Joel Garner. Joined Worcestershire and, in 1992, moved to Durham. He retired midway through the 1993 season.

International Career: Made his England debut in July 1977 against Australia. In 15 years, he took 383 Test wickets, an England record.

Highlights: Botham's Ashes, 1981: One of the great sporting feats of the century, Botham went 149 not out at Headingley after giving an innings performance that the Wisden almanac rated as the fourth best of all time. In the next Test at Edgebaston, Botham took five wickets for one run in 28 balls. At the next Test at Old Trafford, he scored another century and finished the series with 399 runs and 34 wickets.

Low Moments: Botham resigned the captaincy after a loss and draw in the first two Tests of the 1981 Ashes. Alec Bedser, chairman of the selection panel, made it publicly known that he would have been sacked had he not resigned.

In 1986, he was suspended after being charged with possession of cannabis. Went to court after being accused by Pakistan's Imran Khan of ball-tampering and racism.

Honours: 1978 Wisden Cricketer of the Year; 1981 BBC Sports Personality of the Year; 1992 OBE; 2003 president of Leukaemia Research; 2004 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Life time achievement Award; 2007 Knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Head On: The Autobiography by Ian Botham is published in hardback by Ebury Press (£18.99).