Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

49 Enid from 1969 year later (both sponsored by Jack Hayward). Apart from that there was nothing to be played until 1973. In any case Enid would not have been available, as in this period she had two children, Lynne born in January 1970 and Robert in September 1971, so her involvement in local cricket was also much reduced. In the midst of this the constant churn of domestic cricket continued. The 1968 WCA Yearbook announced that the Midlands were now to be split into North and West, and the 1969 yearbook shows Enid as Publicity Officer for the North Midlands (though she doesn’t remember this). It also contained a brief report on Midlands cricket, but was all about organisation: a Midlands League, it said, had been tried with varying success in 1968 and would be repeated in 1969. The WCA now apparently had a Five Year Plan. It was not sure it could live with co-educational comprehensive schools, and it would be a problem, but rather than try to expand into these new entities, this seemed to suggest that the WCA wanted to keep women’s cricket safe for the middle classes. Enid stayed with teaching because it gave her the time off in the summer to play cricket, often playing with Rachael Heyhoe, who was taking teams all round the country to raise the profile of the women’s game, often playing against men’s teams. Enid remembers a particular game where the men started bowling soft to Enid and Lynne Thomas, then found they couldn’t get them out! She also remembers them playing in freezing cold at Haywards Heath with a South African slip fielder in borrowed kit (but no long sleeves) at slip. Enid says: ‘ I do not think I worked when I came back from the 1968-69 tour as the plan was to have another baby so that Lorna was not an only one. I was offered a coaching job in Nottingham at the Boys High School by the head at a cricket dinner. It is a private school - so quite alien to my socialist principles. It did not help his cause that he hinted that he could pull strings! His wife quickly realised from my face that in no circumstances would I take his offer. So I explained that I was planning another baby and left it at that.’ There was cricket in 1969 but from now on scores are harder to find. CricketArchive has no scores from 1969 at all. There are some scores as the short-lived Nottingham Guardian gave some coverage to women’s cricket: this in the form of short pieces with summarised scores. The main source of scores disappeared when the WCA magazine Women’s Cricket , which had run since 1930, folded: the bulletin that replaced it was a very short cyclostyled leaflet and had no room for scores. Unfortunately with the Nottingham Guardian it is not always clear whether the paper is talking about the Nottingham Club or the county side. So while we know that in June Nottingham (119 for eight) beat Leicester (51), we do not know for sure if this was the club or the county. The probability is that this was the club side and part of the Midland League as on the same day Nottingham (108) beat Birmingham (73) and in this game Enid top scored with 21 and