Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

the solid elements of the kind of working class culture that Richard Hoggard so memorably analysed in his Uses of Literacy , published in 1957, a few years before George Duckworth’s death. Witness his telling of the story of his visit to see Ernest Tyldesley in Rhos-on-Sea, North Wales, when his old comrade was combating his terminal illness in 1962 with the same resolve with which he had fought against Harold Larwood and Bill Voce those seasons past. ‘He was sitting in front of t’fire, all wrapped up, and ah said, ‘how are you, George?’ And he said, ‘well, Ducky, ah saw th’oculist last week and he says me right eye’s goin’, and this chest o’mine is givin’ me a bit of trouble, and ah keep getting’ some pain in me back…but, mind you’ – and he was very emphatic about it – there’s nothin’ the matter wi’ me.’ As well as a reminder of what might be called the permanent Georgic appellation in the Lancashire dressing room, it serves, in its presentation of mordant drollery, some proof of that inner core of George Duckworth’s being. For a lovely example of his comradeship and his distinct lack of envy, one may do no better that to turn again to the words of his rival, Les Ames. They were such good friends that, as professional cricketers often did in those days, the Kent star would usually stay with the Duckworths when Kent were at Old Trafford. ‘On the Australian tour, when I was chosen for the Tests’, said Ames. ‘no one could have been nicer to me than George; in fact he became almost a valet to me in the dressing room, seeing that everything was to hand and always having a cool drink ready for me after a two hour session in the heat. It was said of Duckworth on that ‘bodyline’ tour, that, although he ‘did not play in a Test match, [he] earned the respect of all for his unselfish attitude.’ Keith Hayhurst supplied a final eulogistic word from Les Ames: ‘there was no one in the cricketing world I respected more. I am proud that he was a contemporary, a rival, and, above all, a true friend.’ It all forms the picture of someone who was a good sportsman in that other more ethical connotation, to a degree that in a more cynical age some might find mystifying. As with his yielding up his berth in favour of Bill Farrimond in 1938, it would now be the common reaction to search for an ulterior motive or alternative agenda. Nonetheless, the private and public characters do here conjoin; all are agreed he was essentially a good man. The Legacy 66