Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

17 was always playing in scratch games which we lads in the village fixed up amongst ourselves. Ezra was, indeed, a renowned local cricketer for Ratby before he moved to Leicester where he played for various clubs. On 22 June 1911, he captained one of these on Victoria Park to celebrate the coronation of George V, and in 1921 was a member of the Leicester Cricket Club’s fiftieth tour, which began in Skegness. All that I am able to add about his son’s education is that the school was Ratby Board School, the only school in the village, which took children up to the age of 13. It may have been a fairly good school, for by 1874 the school boards of Hinckley and Ratby were the only two in the county to have enacted by-laws requiring attendance. William Ewart’s parents were, as Eric Snow said, ‘above the average’ and insisted on their sons at least taking education seriously. William Ewart was, moreover, intelligent and of curious mind, and so, despite leaving formal education at a young age, he attempted to ‘better’ himself far into adulthood. Apart from cricket his other serious boyhood interest was music, for which he took piano lessons, as he relates himself: There was an amusing little incident in my life about this time. It was in connection with my music lessons. I believe I played the piano fairly well in those days, because there was some talk of my making a bit of money at it later on. Still, keen as I was on music, I was a lot keener on cricket, and one afternoon I “skipped” my music lesson to go and play cricket. You can imagine what happened? Yes; the next time my music teacher saw me Boyhood Boyhood memories? Ewart couldn’t remember much about his boyhood but he did recall attending the Ratby village school.