Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

fund-raising, but welcome enough in the straitened 1930s. Perhaps remembering his father’s perspicacity, George Duckworth invested in bricks and mortar. He had a house built in Chester Road, Daresbury, famed as the birthplace of Lewis Carroll, and a few miles outside Warrington, on the Cheshire side of the river and canals. Barbara Duckworth, ‘as was’, as they say in the north, was a little girl in the family homes in Warrington and Daresbury. She provides an intriguing gloss on the life of the child of a busy cricketer, often away either touring England or further afield in Australia or South Africa. The extended family meant that there was little or no loneliness for her mother and herself, but it was a life of farewells at Warrington Station and excitement on his returns, armed with presents and treats, and, from Australian tours, enough toy koala bears, sent by her father’s friends in Australia, to fill the house. He never disciplined her, says his daughter, although charitable researches would probably show 48 The Legacy George Duckworth saying farewells to his family and friends at Bank Quay Station, Warrington, in September 1932, to go on the ‘bodyline’ tour to Australia and New Zealand. A well-used picture from the family collection.