Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

15 Youth play on the street (using an electricity box as a wicket) or we would make our way over the fields by way of my dad’s allotment to the Japanese gardens at Newstead Abbey. There is a waterfall too and we could paddle or go behind the waterfall. We would spend hours there with no adults around (in the holidays of course; we did not ‘wag off’ school). Children could adventure to the surrounding fields with a stream, buttercups, yellow cowslips and bluebells in the woods in April and May. I was not supposed to go into the woods (mum always over-protective) but we had to widen our horizons until we were scared off by a loud, raucous noise and shifted to the ‘clay hole’ or to dad’s 1000 square metres of allotment, with fruit trees and vegetables. In those days there was a police house in the village with a live-in family policeman. The school had junior and secondary age children with a strict headmaster and so any ‘juvenile delinquents’ were dealt a disciplinary ‘blow’ by the headmaster or the policeman would catch them.’ The village was almost self-contained. There was a centrally placed Co- op with three shops (butcher, grocer and haberdashery) a post office, a newsagent, a fish and chip shop, and a general store. There were two chapels and one church, but only the church remains, and that shares a vicar with Annesley, Newstead Abbey and St John’s, Annesley Woodhouse. ‘During the holidays there were not many girls who wanted to play adventurous games. I did have sleep-overs with a particular friend, Margaret, whose sisters would play for hours with cut-out paper ‘dresses’ from the newspaper. There was no room to invite her back as dad’s Enid aged five.