48 Diamond Avenue

A Memory of Kirkby-In-Ashfield.

My maternal Gt, Grandparents were Joseph and Eliza- Jane Hufton. The house was designed and built by Joseph's brother Austen(they are all buried at the top righthand corner of the 'new' cemetery on Kingsway). as it was the first house to be built it was named Avenue House. Before they moved in it was occupied by Joseph's parents, William and Sarah Hufton.joseph's chidren were Redvers Doris and my grandmother Trixie. Where the name Trixie came from no-one ever knew. one of my grandmothers first memories was the sinking of the Titanic. She was five and a half at the time and remembers keep asking her parents to read the newspaper to her. She always loved horror stories and films
Her father was an Insurance agent for Pearl Insurance. They were quite comfortable and in the early 1920's bought an 'AC' car. He died in 1942, afterwards his married daugh ter Doris and her husband George Roberts moved in to lookafter her mother. Eliza-Jane died in 1964.It was always a special event when my mother took me and my sister to visit Kirkby. Especially as we went on a Trent bus which always seemed rather luxurious after the Corporation buses and trolley-buses we were use to in Nottingham. On these visits we always had lots to eat compared to the rather plain food at home.
Uncle George was a steam enginedriver at the marshalling yards at Kirkby and usually worked nights. On one summers evenning around 1962 he took me with hm on his pushbike and I was lifted up onto the footplate of the engine. I remember the fireman openning the door to show me the firebox.
Roger Cragg

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