Book Review: Jimmy the card of the table

BEHIND THE WHITE BALL By JIMMY WHITE

Jimmy White's life has encompassed innumerable pleasures of the moment but not the fulfilment of his talent. The loser of six world finals has not delivered what his precocious talent promised, but he sure has enjoyed himself.

Behind the White Ball (Hutchinson, pounds 16.99), ghosted by Rosemary Kingsland, conveys his lifestyle and likeability but does not draw the fundamental tension: on the one hand, his life of sensation rather than thought, of excess rather than sense; on the other, his pursuit of a tantalisingly elusive desire, the world title which would relieve the ache of opportunities lost, particularly defeats from winning positions by Stephen Hendry in 1992 and 1994. Here, though, is a man ever true to his own code of honour and loyalty: warm, engaging, roguish, steeped in street wisdom.

There are several episodes which merit inclusion in any anthology of benders, but he has been too busy living to have much time for retrospection. His memory garbles many facts; three of his six world final defeats do not even get a mention. At times he seems to live not only as if there is no tomorrow but no yesterday either. "My only discipline has been snooker," he admits, but on the whole, this has not been enough. This book tells only the half of it but it is still quite a half.

Even before he fell in love with snooker he was a serial truant. One day, he and a mate were scrapping on a pavement with two other ragamuffins when reinforcements were sighted - for the other side. At that moment, the door of Zans Snooker club in Tooting opened. Jimmy and his friend dived in and hid under a table amid the dust and fag ash. "The place fascinated me long before the game did," he said. "This was real cowboy territory, full of villains and good gossip."

From that moment snooker consumed him. When he was 13, he and Tony Meo, who was a couple of years older, were approached by Bob Davis, a taxi driver who proposed setting up money matches and giving them 10 per cent of any winnings or rather, as White clarifies, 10 per cent of what he said his winnings were. Once in Liverpool, at 3am, some of the locals wanted their money back. When they approached, Bob was into his taxi and off, leaving Jimmy and Tony to dive down two alleys in separate directions.

One morning, our two heroes won pounds 1,500 at snooker. By 4.30 they had lost the lot at the bookies but there was plenty more where that came from. Gain was good but retention was boring. In many ways, it was more fun being skint, hurdling barriers at Underground stations or pillaging fruit machines with a coin on a length of cotton.

His first girlfriend, Maureen, became his much put-upon wife. Along the way she taught him to read and write, for as Jimmy reasonably remarks of Ernest Bevin Comprehensive, Tooting: "They couldn't teach me if I wasn't there." He chronicles some of their epic dust-ups, usually consequent to his habit of popping out for a packet of cigarettes and returning days later. Doting on their four daughters - a son has recently been added - it was only on the brink of divorce that this threat of imminent loss sobered him.

So did 120 hours community service when he was banned for drink driving. Looking after the residents in an old people's home "I got to see what it was like to be old and not wanted by your family". So he took two octogenarians, George and Harold, to Kempton Park and Sandown and got into trouble for buying them whiskies.