Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

105 Chapter Nineteen Happy Ending East Lancashire Paper Mill CC joined the Bolton and District Cricket Association in 1932, with immediate impact. They were champions in the first three seasons, Cross Cup runners-up in their fourth and champions again in their fifth and sixth. As a works team, they were fortunate in having, in John Prestwich, a managing director who was a great cricket enthusiast. He had helped provide jobs for fine cricketers before and now Llewellyn had the good fortune to come under his gaze. Buck first appears in the Paper Mill wages books in the week ending 21 December 1932. His department was ‘cricket field’, and for that week he was paid at the rate of 1s 3d (6½ pence) an hour, and four days and two and three quarter hours work resulted in his receiving £2 13s 5d (£2.67). His contribution to the equivalent of national insurance reduced his net pay to £2 11s 9d, while his payment of rent, presumably for the groundsman’s house, was 10 shillings – that is 50 pence. His hours of work varied weekly. Presumably they were fewer in December than at other times of the year! So he was basically groundsman, but in view of his known skills as a coach, must have spent time in the nets. In those last seasons, he is often given his initials in published scores, denoting amateur status. He was being paid to work for the paper mill, not for playing cricket. But play he did in 1934, for their cricket club; as already noted they were an overwhelming presence in the Bolton and District Cricket Association – the rival set-up from which Radcliffe and the eleven other clubs had parted in the winter of 1929/30. When East Lancashire Paper Mills headed the league table in 1934, Buck played his full part in their success, securing 65 wickets at 10.23 each, and sometimes played a useful defensive role at the crease. His season’s figures with the bat in what was on the whole a dry summer were 199 runs, average 22.11. On 15 June 1935, The Cricketer recorded: ‘Recently, playing for East Lancashire Paper Mill, where he is employed, he secured six