CONVERSATION flowed at Penrith Cricket Club’s splendid ground centenary celebrations at Tynefield Park, when the company included ex-presidents, life members, former club captains like Harold Millican, Brian Nixon and Eddie Waite, one-time professionals of the stature of David Ash, John Moyes and Graham Monkhouse and a mixture of bowlers, batsmen, stumpers, scorers and supportive enthusiasts.

Topics debated were wide-ranging in the extreme: Sensational victories, dismal defeats, mighty batting feats, bowling brilliance, former team-mates — and, even more fascinating, the price of meat pies in the 1950s, a subject which was raised by ladies who once served cricketers with teas, such as Jean Hillman and Joy Richardson!

They remembered the club’s years of struggle, before the building of the pavilion in 1956 put Penrith cricket on a sounder financial footing.

Tea-time hospitality was not their only contribution, for they also served on the entertainments sub-committee with others, including Jean Hillman’s late husband, Arthur, and the club president of that era, John G. (Jack) Molyneux.

Meeting at the president’s Wordsworth Street home, the sub-committee devised ways of boosting the finances. At one such gathering in March, 1953, no fewer than eleven types of money-making were suggested, including a talent-spotting competition in the Drill Hall and an open-air dance or barn dance on the cricket ground.

A garden party and a drawing for a bed-jacket were preferred, according to the minute book of the now-defunct committee, whose unspectacular work, more than 50 years ago, paved the way for impressive progress.

Penrith Cricket Club is one of Cumbria’s sporting success stories, rich in achievement over many years and currently outstanding for the development and encouragement of young talent.

Never before in the club’s long history has it turned out four Saturday sides, plus six teams of juniors.

SO SAD FOR SKELTON

In her new book about farming in Eden, Sheepwrecked, Jackie Moffat pays tribute to Skelton show, describing it as “a marathon of organisation, co-operation and co-ordination”.

But when foot and mouth strikes the country, the best-laid plans for agricultural get-togethers fade and disintegrate. Skelton was one of several Cumbrian events to be cancelled, leaving a big hole in the Eden program of late-summer attractions.

As a young reporter, this columnist was introduced to the mysteries of show coverage at Skelton, some 60 years ago, as “second man” to the Herald farming expert of that era, Robert E. Burne.

The showfield was on the edge of the village, behind the Dog and Gun pub, and the junior’s job was to record class results in the secretary’s tent of Joe Bird, invariably helped by the kindly Michael Robinson.

Mr. Burne chatted with officials and exhibitors, especially proud owners of champion animals.

Skelton was a modest show in the 1940s, but ambition was in the air, progress has been impressive and the event is now rightly advertised as “Cumbria’s largest village show”.

Absolute perfection is hard to sustain, however, for Jackie Moffat records in her book a hilarious occasion when the sheep in a “Guess the weight” competition escaped from the pen, which led to “an unseemly scramble across several fields and a memorable debacle involving a pick-up truck, one incandescent farmer and several red faces”.

The recent cancellation was sad, but unavoidable. Hopefully, the sun will shine in August, 2008, and everything will run like clockwork at Skelton show, in its gorgeous setting at Hutton-in-the-Forest.

PIES AND OTHER BARGAINS

So how much was a meat pie in the 1950s — the question posed in the cricket club item at the head of this column?

Old invoices, dated 1956-58, indicate that the tasty bites cost less than sixpence in old money — 5 and a half pence to be precise, or roughly 2p in today’s coinage.

The supplier was Hubert Dyson, family butcher, Langwathby, and Corn Market, Penrith, who generally delivered four dozen (48) and collected £1 2s. (equivalent to £1.10 in 2007).

Everything was a mite cheaper back in the frugal fifties, with tickets in a drawing for cigarettes costing only a penny apiece.

According to a minute book, admission to a club dance in the Crown Hotel to the sweet tones of Frank Walton’s Melody Makers, with a buffet supper, cost a mere eight shillings (40 pence).

And another bargain was an “evening do” at Tom Guest’s Troutbeck Hotel, noted for its hospitality, costing only 5s. 6d (27 and a half pence).

And yet the organisers still made a profit to support Penrith Cricket Club!