Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

16 Youth brother had the spare room, and I slept in a single bed alongside my mum and dad’s double bed; dad being on nights was not there. I stopped going to Margaret’s after her cousin exposed himself to me!’ Enid’s father was what you could only call a pillar of the community. He was on the parish council for 38 years and many years represented Newstead and Newstead Abbey on Basford district council, where Labour was always in the minority (so Newstead got no new houses). Mrs Mayes, who worked with her husband at Bestwood Post Office, was another Labour member. Enid says her dad was ‘almost a communist’ but a mild and patient man. At the same time he was on so many committees: ROSPA, CPRE, a governor of the local school in Newstead, Newstead Abbey committee, judge of best kept village competitions and even entered Newstead for the competition after he retired from judging. According to Women’s Cricket he was president for some years of East Midlands Women’s Cricket (though Enid says she was never aware of this, suggesting the committee did not meet very often!). It meant that Thomas and Mabel led almost separate lives, as he was never in: “He was always busy and even at the end folk were coming for forms even though he was in hospital.” And she never had the confidence to take a driving test, so was not mobile. Enid says that attending conferences or WEA lectures with her parents from an early age probably gave her the ability to concentrate as she would spend hours colouring patterns on graph paper. Rachael Heyhoe Flint was later to remark that she should have given Enid graph paper and crayons in the dressing room to keep her quiet! ‘At one time he drove a van round Newstead delivering ‘meals on wheels’ for the Women’s Voluntary Service - but said he would not wear a skirt! He would then come home aged 80-plus and cook his own meal. At school (Newstead Primary School) we all knew each other, as we were all from the village. The head, Mr Albon, picked out those pupils who might pass the eleven plus exam and coached them. His wife taught needlework (and I won prizes). Mr Moody played the violin in assembly and let us play hockey. Mr Wilson taught us to weave baskets. So although it was a country school I had a good all-round schooling with healthy food, mainly from the allotment, very few cars to interrupt the games of cricket, and we could race on bikes, scooters, or on foot. Dad built a swing at the bottom of the garden, set in concrete so my arms and legs grew strong competing with friends to swing high and then jump off. The impact of feet on concrete hopefully increased my bone density!’ How important was it that Enid was an only child? Had she had a brother would her parents have been more reluctant to see her grow up playing what were usually men’s games? The other part of modern life that was not there of course was television; and Newstead was too small even to run to a cinema, though a man came to the Miners’ Welfare with a projector showing Flash Gordon and the like until he got fed up with kids throwing orange peel at the screen. Enid