Lives in Cricket No 52 - Schooled in Cricket (2nd edition)

26 Johnny’s carpentry skills – and his fondness for making things – led him into many projects in which his brother Sammy was often involved. These skills and the need to make money and pay his way in those days of austerity led him into an avenue which eventually made him unhappy. After school he became an undertaker with his friend and fellow league cricketer Tom Harrison. Johnny always wanted not to be trapped – and ultimately would not allow himself to be so – into this industry of death, though it was a quite different industry of death that he later rejected when war came. Still he must have worked in partnership with Tom Harrison for some time presumably quite soon or immediately after leaving school at 14 and for most of the time up to 1939 when we first have evidence of Johnny being paid to coach cricket in schools. Tom Harrison’s funeral director business based at Church Street, Hunslet would continue for many years after Johnny had left the business until it was eventually incorporated – after his retirement – into a still-existing business in nearby Beeston. Johnny’s youngest son Stephen is clear that Johnny described being in partnership at the time with Tom as they were both young men but that Tom concentrated on the funeral direction and Johnny on the carpentry side of the business. Many members of Johnny’s family refer to his stated unhappiness to be in this work and Johnny himself in his notes expresses his keenness – long before first-class cricket at Somerset was on the horizon – to make a living out of cricket. Johnny had met already his eventual bride-to-be Mary Clarkson, a lass local to the village of Rothwell. They had met at chapel and Mary was as much a committed Methodist as Johnny. Mary’s father is described as having been a “colliery underground onsetter (responsible for loading up the lifts before their ascent from below ground)”. The couple had met some time before February 1932 as there is a Valentine’s Day card dated 1932 in the family’s possession though they would not marry till 1938. Early days