Full disclosure: I’m not a cricket fan. I played in the back garden at home, but other than knocking rose buds off our Dad’s bushes, I don’t think I accomplished much. The slow pace, oddball terminology – such as silly mid off for a fielding position – and difficulty of knowing who is winning make it hard for newcomers to follow.
Cricket does appear to have interested male Poulsons for generations though, starting with John Walden Poulson – the Wastrel – and his younger brother Thomas, both of whom played for the Knottingley Cricket Club (Thomas is second from right, back row). John Walden was captain of the Knottingley team (prior to life veering off the straight-and-narrow) – he took more than just a casual interest in the sport. That continued to his son – my grandfather, John Ernest Llewellyn Poulson – the bank manager, and grandson – my father, John David William Poulson, the actor/director – seen here looking very pleased with himself at his junior school, around 1938. Cricket has been supplanted by football with my brothers – three of them still play/coach as adults – although they all played cricket a little at school. Football, however, is more than just a casual interest…
My grandfather, the Wastrel’s only son, may have played cricket at school – I have no idea where he went to school, either in Yorkshire or in Portsmouth (my Dad didn’t know either), so I can’t be sure. He spent his early years in Knottingley – where the Wastrel and Uncle Thomas played – which possibly sparked his interest.
In the army in the First World War he apparently played football in India (based on Nanny’s caption in the album). Returning to civilian life, he went to work for Barclay’s Bank in Portsmouth some time in 1920 and may have played there, but the first information I can find is in 1925 where “J. E. L. Poulson’s XI” played a match against West Ashling (and lost).
The other articles cover the Barclay’s Bank Chichester cricket team. Gamps is the happy-looking man at the center of the front row in the picture headlining this post. Next to him (2nd from right) is his best friend, Ernie Ellis. Gamps is happy because they just won a match against Goodwood in early September 1926.
There were a number of reports of local cricket team matches in the Chichester Observer in the late 1920s. Many companies and civic organizations had teams but there doesn’t appear to be any league – they would advertise when they didn’t have enough partners and I didn’t find any overall win/loss scorekeeping.
I have to assume that the Barclays team really loved to play – they didn’t win much, so why would you keep playing, occasionally two games in one week, otherwise? Gamps was frequently mentioned as a high scoring player which has to be a motivator. Figuring out reports of cricket scores isn’t straightforward – like the game! Read an overview here if you’re curious – but fortunately the newspaper reports generally said who won.
The matches I found articles about come from Gamps’ time in Chichester – starting some time after he and Nanny were married in April 1923 until June 1930 when they left for his next branch in Winton, Bournemouth. I found a note from Nanny about the move in Dad’s “Progress Book”: “Daddy very sorry to leave the cricket but likes the B. office, he is chief clerk, has a ripping young manager, very sporty, lent us a beach hut for 2 weeks holiday. We did enjoy the sands. David like a coffee berry again, sunbathed mostly all day the 1st week, the second was rather cooler, but we still enjoyed a swim each day. Some days we had two.”
The move after Bournemouth, in January 1932, was to Wimborne in Dorset “…Daddy’s first branch.” – meaning he was the Manager for the first time. There were no more notes about cricket or any bank cricket team. There are some photos from Summer 1939 of a Holmwood Park cricket match (Dad’s last term at that school) that look like parents vs staff, but there’s no detail (and no captions) so I don’t know if Gamps was playing once more.
Back in Chichester, as I looked at the names of teams the Bank played I noticed Pagham and Bognor Regis and realized there were photos in Nanny’s album of kids on the beach in both places (neither is far from Chichester). I can’t be sure, but it seems possible Dad and Nanny got a day at the beach while Gamps played cricket. There are pictures from Selsea, Pagham, Bognor and even Eastbourne (which is much further from Chichester than the other beaches) from the mid- to late-1920s.
I found a Progress Book note about David attending his first cricket match to watch his Dad play – either at only 4 months old if it was 1926 or 16 months if it was 1927. In neither year was June 23rd a Saturday though! It could have been the June 25 1927 match seen above in column 4 of the newspaper clippings. If it was 1926 (June 26th) it was the Pagham team in column 2. Either way, he started taking the game in early!
There was another progress book note about the summer of 1929 “Had a lovely summer with the children, cricket matches most Saturdays, lots of sea visits with bathes, etc. Both love the water.”
This picture at Pagham beach has both David and his sister Jill (my godmother as well as aunt) with Nurse Nannie (Poulson family home helper for Mums with newborns). Although I can’t specifically tie the beach pictures to cricket matches for the Barclays team, there is one set of pictures where a newspaper article about the match and Nanny’s captions in her album line up – at Goodwood in 1926.
I don’t know why Aunty Poul – Emily Muriel Poulson, Gamps’ oldest sister – came to the cricket match, but it was the end of her summer holidays (she was an English teacher at the Chelmsford County High School for Girls) and possibly her first visit to see young David (born in February 1926), Poul has her back to the tree on the right; Sis is next to her and Nanny is holding David in the foreground. The other woman with two kids is a family friend, not relative.
This photo was labeled “Happy Family at Goodwood 1926”. Sis is holding David – and it’s not clear where Sis’ daughter Betty is – she would have been 4-1/2, and possibly unable to be patient for the long day. Some adults don’t understand that small children won’t find a day of watching cricket entertaining – David Poulson, for example. He left his 3 children for about 6 months in early 1961 and when Mum asked him to visit us – she’d told us he was working – he figured a day out watching him play cricket was ideal (clueless!). Thankfully advancing age discourages play!
But for the next generation, cricket did get played for a while at school until football took over. We have a few pictures of Mike, with the next generation represented by Sam Karl (Tony’s son) and Joe Bertolotti (Mike’s son).
For completeness, here are the scores for the Barclays Bank v Goodwood match. I don’t think my fondness for Gamps, strong though it was, could make cricket interesting for me to watch, but if I ever happen upon a time machine, I’d like to head back to 1926 to watch Gamps & Ernie play a match or two.
