Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

116 Hotelier of Wootton Court fault in not confirming the booking. A bouquet of flowers was sent to the bride. ‘I hope she didn’t spend the first night of her married life on the back seat of a car!’ Mike says many years later. The venture at Wootton Court was perfectly timed to make the most of the squash boom, many clubs in later decades switching emphasis to gymnasiums with keep-fit machines as the fashionable way of keeping in trim changed and the attraction of squash began to decline. Meanwhile another sport was entering a boom period – golf. Struggling to make money from their traditional industry, many farmers tried to sell off land for the construction of courses. Soon, as with squash courts, there would be overprovision of golf courses, but as the 1990s approached the prospect of converting the agricultural land around Wootton Court to fairways and bunkers captured the imagination of a potential buyer of the surrounding land. By 1986 Mike’s family had grown up and launched out on their different careers. Barbara, who had set her heart on looking after children from an early age, had bought a house at Kenilworth and started a nursery, Carole had trained as a beautician and then embarked on a short modelling career, while Neil had his foot on the first rung of the ladder as a professional cricketer with a place on the staff at Lord’s. Retirement beckoned for Mike and Diana. The time had come to move on from Wootton Court, which was sold to a local hotelier. Three years later the property had been swallowed up with the surrounding fields and other agricultural land on its way to becoming what is now the Warwickshire Golf and Country Club, boasting two 18-hole courses and a wide range of leisure facilities. The club offers facilities for weddings and conferences, but earlier plans for a 150-bedroom hotel have never materialised. The intervening years are tinged with sadness for Mike. After selling his cherished home as a thriving business, he has seen Wootton Court converted into flats, and he wonders at the wisdom of destroying so much of what he had built up. The squash courts, their changing rooms, the snooker room and a six-car garage with two single-bedroom flats attached have all been demolished. For good measure the lake has been moved. The initial developers burnt their fingers before completing their transformation of the estate, and Mike is perplexed by the decision to build a new clubhouse in the middle of the course when the old Victorian house with its character and charm, as well as its facilities as a hotel, still had so much to offer.