Once a month, a copy of the Independent arrives at the home of Mrs. Winifred Coates at Taddington, near Buxton. She tries to keep in touch with Totley where she was born and bred. She first saw the light of day in the first house of the block at Lane Head in 1904 when her father, Mr. Harry Revill, was then a poultry dealer. Previous to this, her parents had kept the Cricket Inn, she thinks from about 1890 to 1901.

Her mother often told the tale of the donkey they kept then. It was the customers' habit to buy the donkey drinks which, to say the least, upset its sense of balance. One day, after one of these sessions, it tried to jump the small brook at the other side of the field - failed and got its head stuck in between its legs and subsequently drowned. One of the Cricket's customers had special cards printed and she can remember the rhyme to this day:

Old Revill's moke is dead and gone,
Departed this life at 2 to 1,
No more ale he'll get to sup,
This life he's had to give it up.

Her three brothers, Harry, Charles and Percy, all emigrated to Canada. Sister Margaret went to work at the Fleur de Lys and eventually married the landlord's son, Oscar Creswick. During the first world war, they kept the Cricket Inn. Margaret's son, George Creswick, still lives in Main Avenue.

She has connections with the Cricket on her husband's side as well. Hannah Duncan, daughter of the then publican, married Samuel Coates, a farmer, in 1886. Their son, Maurice, married Winifred and at Totley Rise they ran Totley's haulage and coal business. Later in life, they moved to Teddington and ran the village inn there. Winifred is still there and from time to time makes the trip into Totley to look up old friends.

Totley Independent

June 1978