Lives in Cricket No 16 - Joe Hardstaff

Chapter Twelve Latter Days, 1956-1990 Apart from the short spell working at Annesley Colliery and his war service, Joe’s life until 1955 had revolved entirely around playing or coaching cricket. At first he contemplated the prospect of another winter’s coaching at Kimberley Boys’ High School, but George Spencer, a Notts committee member and later president, talked him out of it and persuaded him to join one of his businesses, W.E.Saxby Ltd, dyers and bleachers, at Basford, on the northern edge of Nottingham. 77 Unlike some of his contemporaries, who carried on playing in league and club cricket or coaching, he thus made a clean break from the professional game. Joe spent the next three years working in every department of the firm in order to become fully familiarised with the dyeing and bleaching process. He then became the company’s representative in Lancashire and Yorkshire, an activity which continued to take him away from home, until he retired in 1976 when he was 65. The job involved a lot of driving and he estimated that he travelled 30,000 miles a year, visiting textile firms in Lancashire and Yorkshire persuading them to use Saxby’s services. He turned out to be very good at this. According to his son Joe, a lot of Saxby’s customers were keen on cricket and were only too pleased to see Joe, discuss cricket and then buy Saxby’s services. Joe said that Saxby’s were a good firm to work for and that he had enjoyed his time with them, earning far more money with Saxby’s than he ever did from cricket. After retirement from Saxby’s Joe led a quiet life, and when Cissie died in 1981, he lived alone. He was always prepared to talk about his playing days, and a number of authors including Michael Marshall in Gentlemen and Players , Gerald Howat in Walter Hammond and Len Hutton , and Basil Haynes and John Lucas in The Trent Bridge Battery made good use of his memories. On 18 117 77 Spencer was chairman and managing director of George Spencer Ltd, a public company which had interests in textiles and clothing manufacturing in various towns in the East Midlands. Joe joined Spencer on the Notts committee for a short period in 1967.