Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

13 Youth as her father, William Jabez Amos, was also a signalman it is easy to see how they would have met. In 1926 came the General Strike. Thomas Turton was a strong union man even then, but he never talked about it. The memories must have been just too hard. At some point Thomas and Mabel moved to 27 Livingstone Street, Newstead. Most of the village had been built in 1875 but Livingstone Street was in the ‘new’ village and had a bath and toilet downstairs rather than an outdoor closet. Enid says that they had to move to Newstead or Thomas would have lost his job, though Enid also suggests that she had heard that if Mabel had been willing to sleep with the under-manager that might have been different. The house was close to the railway line, the line that stayed open when the others closed. Thomas’s eldest brother Samuel, who had never married, moved to Newstead with them. Enid says that her mother was never happy about him living with them, as he drank and smoked but in those days you looked after family members. It was also difficult because Thomas was permanently on night shift and Samuel on days. I went out to escape from the arguments and had a go at smoking Sam’s coffin nails – Woodbine cigarettes, until a cigar made me violently sick. But he was not all bad news for Enid; if I got my clothes dirty then Sam would throw a clothes brush over the wall at the bottom of the garden, so I avoided trouble with mum! Samuel died of cancer of the rectum when Enid was 17 – ‘he died one afternoon and mum was on her own as she sent Dad off to take me to a cricket match’ - and she moved into what had been his room, having until then slept in her parents’ room (with her father permanently working nights). Thomas had other brothers. Enid says: ‘ I believe that Oliver died at birth and Wilfred was killed clearing up after the First World War when a shell exploded. Roland and Reg had families in Hucknall and probably worked at Hucknall - there were two mines there. I think that my grandmother took to drink after her favourites were killed and I think this was what made my dad become a Methodist. My dad worked underground for 40 years at Newstead. He had really wanted to teach but had to earn a living right away to support his mum and dad. He was very studious and passed exams to be a deputy and shot-firer. This meant that he was in charge of men and was responsible for placing explosive ‘shots’ into the coal face so that it could be mined.’ All those years he worked nights, which at least gave him some day-time to work on his allotment . ‘Towards the end of his working life he was hit by a missile from one such explosion and was afterwards classed as disabled. He had no interest in