Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

‘The Blocks’. They were cramped, badly built, damp, poorly equipped and some families were overcrowded: at one time The Derbyshire Times described the conditions in them as ‘The Black Hole of Derbyshire’. Although they were less than forty years old, these buildings were eventually condemned by the local council as ‘unfit for human habitation’ in 1939 but, because of war-time and post war housing shortages, their residents were not rehoused and the buildings demolished until 1950. 4 It is astonishing that these were conditions where a man was brought up who had sufficient strength and stamina to deliver perhaps eight hundred overs of first-class fast bowling a year, and was able to develop himself to a standard sufficient to represent his country as an international sportsman. Stonebroom was where Bill spent his formative years, as a member of a household where money would have been in extremely short supply. The Welfare State as we know it today was still many years away in the future. Bill’s mother, Hannah, died in 1923 so that his father was left to cope, more or less on his own, with a family of five children, although some of the older members of whom were already out at work and therefore presumably made some sort of practical and financial contribution to running the household. No Early Days and Family Origins 11 Stonebroom Primary School, much altered since Bill Copson’s time. 4 It is remarkable to think how poor general housing conditions were in many homes even in the early nineteen fifties, well within living memory of many people today. The author can well recall staying in 1952 at the home of a relative, which had no running water or electricity. Lighting was by oil lamps and water obtained by hand pump. Although this was in rural Dorset, such primitive conditions would not have differed that much from many other parts of Great Britain at that time.