Wakes and Cricket

Taken in 1911, this is a view from Bardon Hill looking towards where? Ellistown or Hugglescote? The river, railway and road give some clues. Courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland. See the 'River Sence' page for a similar view.

(Unfortunately, we're not sure which is Mrs Caplain and which is Mrs Wilkinson!)

First Thursday in August every year… they had it in this field for a start…

This field, yes. And they used to have a big marquee and have the flower show in too. There was tea at the school and you know the end of the row, that was all decorated, and you know the end of the lane as you go through to the big [--] that was all decorated, used to have a band didn’t we… a big parade, and we used to have silk things sown on us so we could have a tea. And used to have a fair, a fair used to come, so we could go on the swing boats and roundabouts, free ‘til seven o’clock, and they used to play kiss in the ring, do you remember? I’ll bet you used to.

I still do!

Interviewer: Was this organised by a committee or was it organised by the Everard family?

…it was Mr Ward started it, he was manager of the quarry, and then when Mr Ward died I think it gradually – we had it – but it petered out, it wasn’t so good.

They took it opposite to the Birch Tree for a bit in the field there.

Oh the Birch, you couldn’t get in the Birch could you at the night…

Interviewer: Was the gala basically for residents of Bardon only or did people from Coalville come along?

Oh they came, everybody could come up but it was really the village treat, village school treat you see, that’s what it was.

Interviewer: And you used to look forward to that?

Oh, there was nothing else much to look forward to in our day was there?

And it always used to be red hot though hadn’t it? You could always guarantee it used to be red hot all August, and we used to sit outside ‘til twelve or one o’clock in the morning, it used to be so hot.

I can see my dad sitting, got a chair outside the front door, sitting having his smoke ‘til, you know…

Course we used to do a lot of cricketing up here…

Oh yes, my dad was a cricketer

We always had the cricketers and the footballers and they, everybody joined in you know, used to have the tea up there and everything. Everybody joined in in them days.

Oh yes, cricketing, my dad used to play, he’d got two medals, he’d got a gold medal and a silver medal and he won a clock, for batting, you know. Oh he was crazy on cricket.

I mean, when there were a cricket match on a Saturday it was a real big do wasn’t it?

Yes, it was.

But of course they’ve still got the cricket matches now but they’ve sort of gone by, nobody’s interested are they?

No. Oh it was a real interest.

©EMOHA