Floating Coffins

A Memory of South Wingfield.

South Wingfield Church is situated right beside the river and it was reported to me when I was looking round the graveyard (I'm a fam hist fan) that they have /had problems when the river flooded disturbing the graves and drowning the deceased. Of South Wingfield there is a working flour mill, at one time powered by the river just along the road round the bend and opposite to this stands a row of stone cottages in one of which my grandfather George Hawksley was born in 1861. He grew up to live in Sth Win. at ten yrs age he was down the pit as a child collier. When adult, he and his own family lived in the property that is now the Post office. In times of strike and the like he used to cut hair for the village menfolk in this property. He and his family left Sth Win. in search of work 1901. Most of my mothers older brothers and sisters attended the village school which I believe is still in use today. My mother told me that she just missed out on having a Derbyshire birthright being born in 1908 over the border in Nottinghamshire.