T. Mepham and Sons cricket

CRICKET and the removals business are the factors linking the gentlemen pictured in this. The picture was submitted by R.J. Sinclair, of The Finches.
Mr Sinclair writes: “The enclosed photograph – circa 1948 – is of a cricket team got up by T. Mepham and Sons, the local removal firm, to play Ninfield Cricket Club.
“Back row, left to right, they are: Alf Piper, Derek Mitchell, Eddie Banfield, Gus Ford, Alec Sinclair, Bernard Beal.
“Front row: Cyril Cornford, Brewer Mitchell, Bob Marchant, Alf Stevens, Ted Mepham.”

“THAT’S my dad in front row,” John Marchant told Nostalgia Spot on seeing this picture.
Bob Marchant was pictured in the middle of the row.
The post-war picture showed members of a cricket team put together by local removals firm Mephams.
John says: “I used to work for the firm when I was a lad but I must have been away doing National Service in the Army when that was taken.
John can pick out Alf Piper at the left of the rear row with Alex Sinclair next to him and ... Stevens next to Alex.
“In the middle of the back row is Eddie Banford.
“Ted Mepham is, of course on the right of the front row.”
John has a memory of his own of his days with Mepham’s - a shot taken beside a removal van when he was about 16, putting the picture at about 1948.

JOAN Petts, of Southlands Avenue, also picked out Ted Mepham, Eddie Banfield, Alec Sinclair, Alf Stevens and Alf Piper and correctly recalled that was a cricket team made up of Mepham’s removal staff.