Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

Luftwaffe, with most of those ships destroyed at the cost of many lives. Like Bill Edrich’s poignant tales of perilous low-level attacks with coastal command on German shipping, followed by trips to Lord’s to play in wartime matches, the citizen’s war constantly threw up such dramatic contrasts. George Duckworth was keen to do his bit during the week as well as at the weekend, when he normally played twice, a Bradford League game on the Saturday and a charity match, under his supervision, on the Sunday. He tried his hand at sorting out ration books for the Ministry of Food and as a clerk at Crosfield’s, his wife’s old employers. Years of open air activity had accustomed him to the freshness of that type of life and inured him against the claustrophobia of indoor work. He suddenly decided to become a farmer. He had always sustained the horticultural and allied instincts associated with the working class urbanite. He had had an allotment; he had raced pigeons, and he had raised prize poultry. He optimistically bought a text book on farming and took up the licence of the Walton Arms pub, Walton, barely a hundred yards from the Warrington Cricket Club, principally because there was a farm attached. It was certainly a public-spirited adventure in 1940, when, as the sorrowful New Brighton incident exemplifies, merchant shipping was under severe threat and the nation was exhorted to ‘Dig for Victory’, using all available means to improve home production. It was also a courageous, even a rash, decision for a townie, in The Legacy 50 George Duckworth trying to introduce his daughter, Barbara, to the skills of pigeon-fancying