Cricket in the street at Elfrida

Cricket was not limited to our rather parochial games in the garden but extended to the more competitive ones played in the street between the children of both sexes of the various local families and included such notable players of yesteryear as Barry 'Ginger' Reynolds, Roddy Metcalfe, Eric and Billy and a variety of other 'Scotts' from the large family of that name who lived opposite us on the Elfrida side, and the non-aristocratic Nobles. There were also representatives of the families Tamplin, and Callaghan (a local variety of the family Staples who lived opposite to the Cowden Street entrance of our home) there were other locals that the little grey cells have for the moment forgotten plus the occasional visiting player from the surrounding streets. Again the pitch was of a non-classical type, tarmac rather than the grassed versions preferred by both the professional and the rather more fastidious amateur player. Located on the apex of the camber of the road where there were positioned, so beautifully that devine intervention must have played its part, two inspection hatches with a space between sufficiently wide to represent the wicket. This was for those occasions, mostly, when we did not have access to the type of stumps which slotted into a wooden base. The hatches, the variety of which was unknown to us at that time, were of cast iron and lay flush with the road surface. [In our defence it has to be said that none of us were connoisseurs of the subject or had sufficient interest to identify the particular genre, it was sufficient for us to know that they existed]. All the bowling was carried on from the King Alfred Avenue end of the pitch, which sloping upwards towards the batting area tended to provide a distinct advantage to the batsmen.

Rain was not an unknown phenomenon and while some of the children would have continued playing under most damp conditions their assorted parents tended to insist that the players should retire to their various 'pavillions'. However, provided at least one member of the Scott family was playing, a game could sometimes continue in the covered alleyway between their's [the Scotts] and their neighbour's [Name has disappeared] homes. Eventually, the constant banging of the tennis ball against the fence and the two back-garden gates that formed the wicket end of the pitch proved too much and the neighbour would evict us.