Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

14 cricket really but when young he cycled hundreds of miles round Wales together with a collie dog. He then bought a tandem for him and mum until I came along - they then had two separate bikes with child seats on the back. I was taken to school on the bike - half a mile up hill - when it was raining. Usually wearing a pink raincoat and was called Red Riding Hood! The ‘old’ village consists of rows rather like Coronation Street. Young families were placed there, even though there were no indoor toilets, no bathrooms and concrete areas at the back and front. We were very lucky as we got a house in the ‘new’ village, 27 Livingstone Street where my son now lives, where there was a bathroom-toilet downstairs. It has a kitchen with a living room-lounge. There are three bedrooms upstairs. Mum and dad had a larder-pantry with the bathroom and toilet leading off from the kitchen. Mostly we lived in the kitchen with an open coal fire with a back boiler - the coal fire heated the water and the oven at the side of the fire. There was no gas and power cuts were a regular occurrence in winter so candles were always handy. The house had gardens back and front, so big that my dad could sink a metre deep pond with fish. He had to fence it off whilst I was young. There were lots of trees in the garden planned by dad as well as hundreds of bulbs as mum said that she could not see the flowers when she was dead! Dad also sunk a swing into a concrete base at the bottom of the garden. We had hens in an enclosure to give us fresh eggs and a chicken for Christmas. Mum sometimes made her own bread. Fresh fruit and vegetables came from the allotment so only meat had to come from the butcher. The Co-operative shops in the centre of the village sold meat, groceries, haberdashery. Mum would balance the books by shopping at the Co- operative stores as they paid a dividend, not profit, and she would proudly say that if she were a halfpenny in the black at the end of the week she was happy.’ The neighbours knew all your business but at the same time it was a community and everyone cared for each other. The children could wander, play and explore. Enid says: ‘ Usually we did not go home unless we were hungry or it was too dark to play. There were few cars or other vehicles so we played, ran and cycled in the streets. There was a square I used to jog or ride round or cycle – I remember coming off my bike racing a friend. Competitive even then. Because the mine was close, bricks were made from the clay deposits near the vicarage. We had a ‘gang’ and made a den there. We played football and cricket on the field adjacent to the vicarage except for the fortnight in the summer when the mine took its two-week holiday and they brought up the horses which worked underground for the rest of the year. So for those two weeks our games on the field were stopped and we would either Youth