South Yorkshire Times, August 3
Boy Pea Pickers Hurt at Denaby.
Alan Bulcroft, 14-year-old son of Mr and Mrs A Bulcroft, of Barnborough Street, Denaby Main, was knocked down by a van on Friday only four days after his five-year-old brother John had been injured when he was hit by a motor school to in Old Denaby Lane.
Luckily Alan escaped with a cut knee when he and his friend 12-year-old John Jamieson, also of Barnborough Street, were hit by the van as they were running across Edlington Street.
The two boys were among a party of pea-pickers waiting to be collected by a farmer’s lorry in Loversall Street. Alan explain on Monday that when the lorry did not turn up to other boys, Michael Kelly and Malcolm Jackson, both of Doncaster Road, Denaby, set off to ring the farmer, from a nearby telephone. Alan and John were racing their pals to the phone when the accident occurred.
Realising what is happening 14-year-old Michael Kelly telephone for an ambulance, which took the two injured boys to Mexborough Montagu hospital, accompanied by the leader of the pea picking gang, Mrs Florence Wright of Loversall Street.
Allen’s mother, Mrs Alice Bulcroft explained. “When somebody came and said Alan had been run over. I nearly died.”
She rushed to the hospital where her other son, John, was detained following his accident earlier in the week.
She added, after I had been up there, my husband had to stay with Alan to that I could come home and get ready to go back again to see John.”
With two children involved in road accidents in one week, Mrs Bulcroft is hoping the family has had its ration of bad luck.
“And this is only the first week of the school holidays,” she exclaimed.
John Jamieson was treated for injuries to his mouth and Alan at 60 stitches in his knee both boys were allowed home after treatment.
Added Mrs Bulcroft, “Alan won’t be going pea picking now, his father won’t let him!”