READING about Joy Elliot's childhood made me think of mine, which sounds as if it was very similar.

We lived in Mickleover in the late 1920s and early 1930s and my sister Marjorie and I knew most of the footpaths around the area.

I clearly recall the one Joy mentions from the back of the church, over the fields to Radbourne.

One Sunday morning, my father, Charles, took me to see the local hunt, which met at the top of The Hollow.

I would only have been about four years old.

We followed them along the path to Fox Covert, a little wood near Radbourne, where the fox was killed.

Being the only female present, I was "blooded" and presented with the fox's brush.

I remember being scared about the "blooded" bit but all that happened was that one of the huntsmen dipped his finger in the blood of the fox and wiped it across my face.

Like Joy described, we also went on picnics at the weekend but, instead of using the bus like she did, we travelled on the train.

My dad worked on the railway and so was able to get cheap tickets for his family.

We went to places like Matlock, Buxton and Alton Towers, before it became an amusement park.

I remember that the house my parents bought when we moved back to Derby from Mickleover in the early 1930s had a pump attached to a stone sink. It didn't take dad very long to take it out and replace the sink.

Each house on Young Street had a well in the back yard which was used to supply water to the pump.

These were covered with a big slab of stone.

In later years, I remember that, when people started to make alterations to their houses, they would lift the stone lid up and dump all of the building rubble into the well.

As it was not in use any more, I don't suppose that it mattered.