I WANT to lay claim that I am the longest serving member of Alvaston and Boulton Cricket Club.
When Mr Peach was secretary he was also my teacher at Brighton Road Boys' School.
​Brighton Road Boys School was where Reg attended and was also the venue for whist drives and dances organised by Alvaston and Boulton Cricket Club.
He would give me a quarter of an hour on top of my midday break to take a letter to a cottage on London Road to be given to a member telling him he had been picked for Saturday's match. If I remember correctly, his name was Feast.
The club used to hold whist drives and dances in the hall of the girls' school and, on a Saturday morning, after the event, we were detailed to attend to give the caretaker a helping hand with the clearing up.
On a Saturday match day, work did not finish until 12 noon, sometimes one o'clock, and it didn't give the players much time to get to the match venue. Most of them had a bike and some may have had a horse-drawn conveyance.
One Saturday, I remember seeing the team getting aboard a horse-drawn coach, most of them wearing blazers and straw hats. "Knocky" Porter provided the means of transport.
I worked in the same shop at the Loco Works as Charlie Freestone, the cricket club's great bowler. He once took four wickets in five balls in 1921 and the club kept the ball.
Crewton United played on a piece of ground behind Boulton Church and got changed in a loft in a nearby yard. The highlight of the local football calendar was when Alvaston and Crewton met.
Crewton Mission stood on Brighton Road and the services here were always well attended.
Next door was Buxton's bread and cake shop, which was also an off-licence. There was a back way into the shop by way of a passage through the house and in it was a lavatory used by the staff for a crafty cigarette.
As kids, we would sneak in and put our hand on the shelf to see if a nub end had been left there.
At the corner of Brighton Road and Fife Street was a yard where spare materials for roads and pavements were kept.
"Beefy" Wright had a butcher's shop on the corner of Chambers Street, while, on the other side of the road, was Haddocks fish and chip shop.
At the rear of the Navigation Inn was a building that used to be the old pub. It was near to the canal, where goods from barges were unloaded. Holmes the builders had a place there which I used to pass on my way to school from my house in Haig Street.
Halfway between London Road bridge and Parson's bridge was a place where water from the canal was released into a brook. Many a time I saw traction engine drivers taking on water from it.