Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

85 Tragedy poor part of the town’. This may not have been the family home, as Dick also had an interest in a property at 18 Forest Street, some way east of the town centre (but still, as at the start of his life in Burnley, a street of tight Victorian terraces). The business at the Criterion continued through 1895, and as the New Year dawned and he joined in the singing with the locals in the nearby Crockshaw’s Hotel, Dick Boys must have been looking forward to his 27th year as a Burnley CC player, and perhaps to greater prosperity through his business ventures. But it was not to be. Number 149 was right on the corner of St James’s Street and Calder Street, with large windows looking out on to each street. It was single storey, one of eight lock-up shops formed some 20 years previously out of part of the former West End Mill (also sometimes known as the ‘Bottom o’ th’ Town Mill’), the main structure of which stood just a little way up Calder Street. The mill, dominated by its large chimney, had ceased to be used as such for many years, and in the meantime had found short-term uses as stables, as warehousing, as a lecture-room, and as a bakehouse. Saturday, 4 January 1896 started as just another day in Burnley. There had been gales earlier in the week, but this day was unusually calm, with barely a breeze. At Turf Moor, adjacent to the town club’s cricket ground, Burnley FC beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-0 in a First Division match. By late afternoon all was relatively quiet around the Criterion - a lull after a busy period earlier in the day, and before an expected surge of business later in the evening. Towards 6.30pm, Dick Boys and his wife were alone in their shop, having just sent their children out to play; while in the nearby clogger’s shop of Peter Grant, the owner’s 21-year-old son - also Peter - was busy finishing off a repair for young (12- or 13-year-old) Margaret McCluskey, who was sitting on a form waiting to take the repaired clogs back to her home in nearby Cross Street. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was an almighty crash - like the sound of a boiler exploding, as one witness described it - and a continuing rumble of sound for several minutes, as a blinding cloud of dust built up in the area of the Boys’ shop. As the dust cleared, the shops on the corner were seen to be in ruins; and the chimney on the old mill had disappeared. Local residents, the fire brigade and the police - headed by the chief constable - all came rapidly to do what they could to help. Within half an hour, it was estimated that many thousands were on the scene, from all over the town. And word was spreading that ‘gentle, genial’ Dick Boys was among those caught up in the incident. Around 6.45pm Peter Grant was found, still alive though badly hurt and still bleeding; his life had been saved by a fallen beam which protected him from the worst effects of the falling masonry. Meanwhile in the Boys’ shop rescuers had to make their way through a huge and densely-packed pile of debris on the shop floor before, around 7pm, their worst fears were confirmed when the bodies of Dick and Rebecca were found, face down and lifeless. Dick was stretched over his wife’s body, as if he had been