Tim de Lisle: Old master view, green baize grass... a millionaire's Fantasy Cricket

It's hard to believe someone is dead when you have just received an invitation from them. In his last years, Paul Getty's hospitality grew and grew, from generous to prodigious, verging on industrial. Crisp cream cards in deep-pile envelopes rained down on his friends, neighbours, associates, employees and book dealers. Paul's stationery was so smart, even his printer was an Old Etonian.

At Wormsley, the dreamy estate in Oxfordshire where he held his cricket matches, one marquee was no longer enough: his team drew bigger crowds than some counties. When he revived the tradition of country-house cricket, he did it in style. The turf was laid by the best groundsman in England, and the pitch was so good it was sometimes self-defeating – hardly any wickets would fall, the one intimation of a rich man's folly. But playing there was a treat, relished by world-class cricketers as well as wide-eyed amateurs. Cricket is largely standing around, and standing around was never better than at Wormsley, where the view was an oil painting, the outfield a snooker table.

Waiters roamed the boundary with trays of champagne. There was salmon for lunch, scones for tea, ice-creams from an olde-worlde cart. If the cricket dragged, you could look at the rare books in the purpose-built library. Paul Getty was the host with the absolute most, the Gatsby of the Chilterns.

Unlike Gatsby, he belonged. Cricket's wacky pantheon of celebrity characters flocked to him. Brian Johnston, the much-loved broadcaster, was chief meeter and greeter at Wormsley until his death in 1994. Dickie Bird umpired. The official scorer was Bill Frindall of Test Match Special, and his scorecards were stuffed with household names. It was Fantasy Cricket made real.

As well as Britain's bigggest philanthropist, Getty was one of its smaller publishers. He liked the Wisden Almanack so much, he bought the company. I got to know him through editing Wisden Cricket Monthly and joining Wisden's management committee, which Paul chaired, as long as it didn't clash with Neighbours.

The tricky business of being a press baron came easily to Paul, who was hands-off, supportive, interested but never fussed. He was a good listener, asking succinct questions with his avuncular mid-Atlantic growl. Much as he loved Britishness, he was American in his approach, believing it was the editor's job to edit, and his own job to placate his friends when the editor offended them, with a gracious letter and a free subscription.

He loved cricket's traditions, but saw the dangers in sticking to them rigidly: both the Almanack and the magazine became more progressive in his 10 years of ownership. The business gene had skipped him and alighted on his son Mark, who has made Getty the biggest name in picture libraries. But Paul didn't see Wisden, or The Oldie which he took over last year, as philanthropy. Budgets were tight; only the freedom was exceptional. He enriched Wisden in the best way, by enabling it to get better.

Similarly, he gave cricket more than love and money. The stand he bought for Lord's in 1987, the new Mound with its white tented top, was a bold, elegant piece of contemporary architecture that set the tone for a large-scale regeneration. Previous additions had been drab concrete; subsequent ones have been airy and fresh.

Last week the old story was trundled out about Paul's father, J Paul Getty I, being so stingy that he installed a payphone for his houseguests. Less familiar, but more relevant, is the tale of how Paul was sent to an English prep school and wrote a letter home, which his father returned – with all the spelling mistakes marked. Paul's gentleness and generosity, the two qualities John Major pinpointed on Friday, may have been acts of rebellion.

The rich are different from you and me: they have more ways to mess up. Paul Getty had explored most of them, yet for the last 15 years of his life, largely thanks to his inspiring third wife, Victoria, it all went spectacularly right. One day at Wormsley, by the ice-cream cart, he bumped into my small son. Paul bent down and asked, "Will you shake my hand?" My son thought about it and said, "No." Paul erupted into his distinctive guffaw, the sound of an old gentleman making up for all the times when there had been too little laughter.

Tim de Lisle is editor of 'Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2003', published 30 April. He was arts editor of The Independent on Sunday, 1991-95