Welbeck Colliery Village Now Know As Meden Vale

A Memory of Meden Vale.

My Grandparents moved to Welbeck Colliery Village about 1926, when my mother was 10 years old, and stayed in the same house at the bottom of Elkesley Road until they went into care in the 1970s.
My parents did their courting round Carburton Lakes in the 1930s and got married in Warsop Church in June 1945. I was born in January 1947, and my mother was stranded at her parents' house for a few weeks because of the snow with me sleeping in a drawer.
During the 1950s I sometimes went to Welbeck School for a week or two if my mother was ill. Grandma would turn my cold school milk into hot Horlicks, passing it through the railings as their garden adjoined the school playground.
We always spent Christmas at Welbeck, coal fires, side oven, saucepans on the fire, a cold pantry under the stairs with a "meat safe" (they didn't get a fridge until the mid-60s), a freezing cold outside toilet next to the enormous coal shed (they got a ton at a time!), a bath in the bedroom, a tiny and chilly "front room" that was only used for plants after great-grandma died at the age of 100, and sometimes snow on the fields across the road.
My other memories are of going to watch the cricket with my father and granddad, and of going for walks in the woods with my parents. It was a beautiful spot at the foot of the hill there, and my grandparents had a huge (to me as a child) garden.

Both my parents are still alive (92 and 94), and both still have excellent memories. We all listen avidly when there is any news of Welbeck Colliery. My Granddad was boiler foreman there, and my mother's younger brother was pit electrician.

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