Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

a motivated, active working man, one that was to be repeated throughout several generations of the Duckworth family. An early example of this was Arthur’s brightness at elementary school, so much so that the head teacher wanted him to try for a scholarship for the local grammar school, but, like many youngsters before and since, he failed to confide this possibility to his father, and left school at twelve. He obtained an apprenticeship at the Rylands factory and remained in that employment all his working life. The comedian, Bill Waddington, who found late fame among the soap flakes of Coronation Street as the veteran grumbler, Percy Sugden, had, although Oldham born, the variety bill matter of ‘Witty Willy from Warrington’. Arthur Duckworth outdid him in the alliterative stakes. He was the wicket-keeping wiredrawer from Warrington. For over forty years he drew wire vocationally and for over twenty years he kept wicket recreationally. He was a permanent name on the team-sheets of the Warrington Cricket Club. For all this compound of industrial and sportive activity, Arthur Duckworth found time in his busy schedule to furnish forth, with the valiant aid of Mrs Duckworth, a large family. If offspring are man’s passport to immortality, Arthur Duckworth was taking no chances with the immigration authorities among the shades. Ten little Ducklingworths squawked and darted about that homely terraced house in Warrington. Keith Hayhurst, the Lancashire vice-chairman and founder of the Cricket Memorabilia Society, and an ebullient figure who might vie with George Duckworth himself in energy and enthusiasm, has written that ‘George, being the eldest of the ten children, learned to shout the loudest’, a prerequisite of and adornment for his coming craft. He also records the tale of George Duckworth, aboard the SS Orontes , en route to Australia for the ‘bodyline’ series, settled in a secluded spot on deck with an absorbing book. The ship’s bore approached and insisted on converse. Having established it was ‘Mr Duckworth’, the next question considered residence. ‘Are you from Lancashire?’ The reluctant conversationalist nodded. The debate continued ‘That’s interesting. I’ve got an uncle in Lancashire’. ‘That’s nowt’, replied George, with some air of finality, ‘I’ve got six’. When it came to extended families, George Duckworth’s was positively boundless. The Background 6