Coronation Village

North Muskham in the 1950s

By Trevor Frecknall

The average traveller speeding along the A1 hardly notices North Muskham, four miles north of Newark. Even many of those who have decided to spend the night there struggle to find the Travelodge, hidden as it is behind a Little Chef and a filling station.

Yet the village has some amazing secrets...

A former debutante and daughter of a prestigious Newark lawyer who, in abject poverty, froze to death in a tin shack...

A bullied schoolboy who lied about his age to enlist for fighting in the Second World War so that his widowed mother would be assured of a weekly income...

A tuberculosis sufferer who was so determined to see her son grow up that she lived in a shed in their garden rather than agree to a move to hospital...

The stories are just some of those revealed in a book that details what life in a typical English village was like at the start of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. It was written by a long-time resident with the help of many who experienced the period when television was in its infancy, the new-fangled electricity supply was still treated with suspicion, everyone grew there own vegetables and cars were a perk of only the very rich or outrageously adventurous.

Coronation Village delved behind every door in North Muskham in the 1950s as the author, Trevor Frecknall, strove to prove that everyone has a story to tell. Although he spent his life working as a journalist, even he was surprised - and delighted - by some of the information he discovered.

Coronation Village's recommended retail price is £10.95. To obtain the 190-page book for £10, post and package free, send a cheque (made payable to T and GM Frecknall) to Coronation Village, 9 Main Street, North Muskham, Newark, Notts, NG23 6EZ.