Brierley Common

A Memory of Cudworth.

I recall going to the fairground which was on the Common; there were some stalls of which one could either test your skill trying to throw a hoop over a prize in order to win it; of course there was a catch and that catch was to make sure the hoop would drop dead flat on the stalls table. There was a square cube of which when throwing the hoop over the prize; in this case a bottle of Pompagne vintage cider (the spelling might not be right), it was within a Champagne Bottle of which the Champagne company tried to stop the cider company from bottling it in their style of bottle. Anyway, I was able to throw the hoop and hay presto I won a bottle. Clutching hold onto my prize I'd go round the other stalls. There was a stall that had various expensive looking cuddly toys on them. All you had to do was to pay £1 for five of these tickets (I forget the name of the ticket) but one would have to tear the edges of the ticket to get at the number which was revealed inside. Someone had made a complaint to the Police that they thought that the stall holder was a conman and that there were no winning tickets within this vast basket of tickets. The police had to try prove that fraud was committed. But in order to do that, the Police Inspector would have to tear all the tickets open to prove foul play. The stall holder said that the police would have to pay for all tickets opened. The inspector said that if he could not find any winning tickets that it would be the stall holder who'd be having to pay in court; but agreed that if there were as many as ten winning tickets that he'd be compensate the stall holder. The inspector was to find more than ten winning tickets but had had to tear open more than two hundred tickets! It was to cause much bother that apology, and the payment of those tickets was not enough. So much money had to be paid from the police funds it almost made the headlines on the newspaper's front page. Can anyone tell me if the fairground is still there on the Common? While there are a few more words to punch in; I recall in the 1970s I'd be walking from Thurnscoe towards Brierley. I was going up some hill when a Motorcycle with rider and pillion passenger went by me at such a great speed that I could but guess that he was doing above 120 mph. Some twenty minutes later, I had got to the top of the road and there was a vehicle what seemed to be on the wrong side. It was facing down hill on the upside lane. Upon getting closer, it became obvious why the car was stationary for at least 100 yards away on the right hand side of the road, was this mangled wreck of a motorcycle. It had landed upon the grass verge and slid fifty feet - the mangled wreck was due to it hitting the car side on. What had happened was that the driver of the car had been parked within a lay-by for quite some time and decided to do a u-turn to go back towards Thurnscoe. Not indicating or even bothering to see if there was any traffic behind, simply came out of the lay-by. The motorcycle hit the car at such an impact the car spun round at a three hundred and fifty degree angle and spun half that again. The motorcyclist and passenger were thrown sixty feet and then slid - the motorbike fell on top of them, both died. But what surprised me on seeing the wrecked bike, was that the handlebars that should have been each side of the forks were not like that at all. They looked as if they were like bulls horns because the rider had held on so tight to the handlebars when he had crashed into the car (not letting go until the shear force caused him to break all fingers). Handlebars are made of high grade steel. I tried once to put one into a vice and to bend it straight and the only way I could bend the bar was with a long scaffolding bar, and even then it was not an easy task. Who was to blame? It would have been the motorcyclist for doing the speed he was doing. It was a tragic day, two young peoples lives wasted.

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