Charles Dickens' Cricket Song Unearthed

Charles Henry and Eliza Harriet Pocock

Whilst researching for my next book, the true story of the early life of my grandmother Ethel Pocock, who was brought up in Rochester, Kent in the Queen Victoria era, I came across a surprising link between my great-grandparents Henry and Elisa Pocock and Charles Dickens. Not only did Henry Pocock look after Charles Dickens' bee hives, he measured and made shoes for Charles Dickens and also played cricket with Charles Dickens and others on the land behind Gad's Hill Place, Dickens' house. The matches started at 5:00 and finished at 8:00 am, after which everyone including Dickens would repair to the Sir John Falstaff pub across the road and enjoy a breakfast of bread and cheese, washed down with mugs of ale. Then, the men would disperse and go about their normal daily business, my great-grandfather to his shoe and boot making shop. Apparently Dickens had a cricket song that was sung after every match and the words and tune were passed down to my great-uncle Will Pocock OBE. Sadly the tune has not survived but I have added the words below.

“This world is like a game of cricket,

Rolling on from day to day.

We are players placed upon it—

Sometimes bowled right clean away.

So keep your arm and eye both steady,

Watch your chances one by one.

Don’t strike the ball ’til you are ready,

Then be careful how you run.”

My great-grandmother Eliza Harriet Pocock occasionally had tea with Charles Dickens and it is family folklore that she first met Dickens as a small girl whilst running home in the pouring rain. Charles Dickens happened to be passing by in his carriage and he asked his driver to stop and pick up the girl so that he could drive her home. If this story is true, Charles Dickens might well have been instrumental in my grandparents getting to know each other.