Hi People

I,m looking for the history and memories of Banners Department store on Attercliffe Rd,Attercliffe.:huh:
Just done a piece on my youtube,Video 26 with my young memories.Please take a look and drop me a reply. :roll:

Andy

Hi Andy
You have really taken me back about chippengham street my grandmother and aunty and her family lived at number 18 for more years than i can remember also my aunty used to work at banners
I dont live in sheffield anymore like you I moved to the coast of norfolk so havnt been back to sheffield for a few years
really liked you videos they are great

My grandmother used to have a shop at Darnall - Gertrude Winter - I think it was a corner shop of the old type - sold everything. As for Banners that was the shop where they put your money in a metal drum and it shot off around the shop - your change came back the same way

Hi Sylvia
Thankyou,i,m glad you are enjoying them.It is strange living far away,what seems daft to others means a lot to us.Thats why i,m looking forward to going back in august.Just uploading the video about banners now.They should make it as it was one day and build the area back up.

Thankyou please keep watching

Andy m

Hi Smary
i probably went in if it was a corner shop.We would walk back from darnall on our way back from Brightside and via the River Don quite regular.
Funny but i do remember your change coming back now,just rang my mum who confirmed this too.Looks like we never bought much upstairs...

Thankyou for your post

Andy m

Hi andy
yes I will keep watching it really does take you back in time
I also had a aunty that lived on sortridge street think that was how it was spelt the street ran along the side of banners of chipingham streeet
you may have know my family my gran was called wade my aunty and her family were called long and my other aunty was richardson
I remember going to 18 chipingham street to visit my grandmother and having to walk up a alley way and the door was on the left hand side never did like that ally way can remember when my grandmother died and they came to take coffin out they nearly had to stand the coffin on end as so narrow
I use to work at timpsons on the main raod near to burtons i worked in the ladies and next door my brother in law was the manager of the mens then moved to the bottom of attercliffe common to the dry cleaners for a while
goodness now my brain is working over time some good some not so good but as they say thats life
so many houses having to be knocked down to make way for improvement i never lived in attercliffe just up the hill in handsworth but always went to sttercliffe banners basement to the record department i bought my first record there
well will keep watching your site for more walks down memory lane
sylvia

my great uncle worked in a general clothes store shop in attercliffe for years he started work there in the 1940s it was called 'seniors' which was opposite banners shop i was allowed to go in as a child aslong as i was quite and dint touch anything!!!!

Did Banners have those vacuum tubes for sending money and reciepts through?

If thats the place, I remember my mother taking me on the 17 bus there in the mid 60s, I remember seeing a railway station full of coal trucks..? God knows where that memory came from, and I particularly remember being fascinated and scared by those vacuum tubes.
I opened one up once and the sound was so loud it almost scared me to death.
I was about 6.

Hi Sylvia
I know the kind of alley way you mean,and can see that being a kind/but not amusing dilemma.Never really new many names as i was little just faces but i will be asking my mum.I remember the record dept too.Just jogged my memory on that one thankyou

shame it had to be knocked down,but we never forget ey !!

Andy m

hi Fatalstarlite

Bet you did though mate,know i did usually knocking something over in a quiet shop.will see if i can find a picture of Seniors

Cheers
Andy

Hi Jaberwocky,hows you mate.

Be great if the system was still there unused to photograph,ey.would love to go walking around again.Not sure about the coal trucks must have been on the bus down mate lol

Andy

Hi Jaberwocky,hows you mate.

Be great if the system was still there unused to photograph,ey.would love to go walking around again.Not sure about the coal trucks must have been on the bus down mate lol

Andy

Thinking about it, the station must have been Victoria goods yard? Victoria station? I always looked for passenger trains but never saw any, just goods trucks being shunted around.
As I mentioned, I was only a sprog, but thinking back it was just past the ...Upwell street is it? The bridge with the dip under it? It was around there somewhere Im sure.
Im terrible at remembering street names and stuff.

This is a story my grandma used to tell me. She went in Banners one day with her sister (in the 1920s) they went to the hat department where they tried on a few hats, my grandmas sister found one she liked so she kept it on and left her old hat behind and walked out with the new one and never paid for it.

hi Fatalstarlite

Bet you did though mate,know i did usually knocking something over in a quiet shop.will see if i can find a picture of Seniors

Cheers
Andy

that wud b great detrius...my uncle passed away bout 10yrs ago so itl bring sum memerys c-ing it agen...thanx

i lived just behind banners and used to go there with my mother every week, i remember how busy it was, and how everyone knew everyone. We would do a little shopping then have something to eat and drink in the cafe there, then it would be off to hitchens.

What I remember most about banners is that it was the first shop that i know to have a wooden escalator quite grand at the time.They used to have some kind of a cheque system of their own with banners tokens but don't remember how it worked.

I think Banners was the first store in Sheffield to have a lift.

I also remember catching the 17 bus to Banners, it seemed to take forever from Parson Cross. It was a real exciting event, a day out to this huge department store, everytime I see Are You Being Served on telly I think of Banners. I was only about 6 or 7 but can just about remember the lifts, they were like cages and they really scared me. I can remember my gran and mother saying they are going to spend their Banners cheque, of course I didnt know what one was, I just knew we may get some new clothes or shoes.

Hi Andy me owd mate.

John Banner opened his first shop in 1873. The big one we knew and loved was built between 1927 and 1933, and the architects were Chapman and Jenkinson (a Sheffield firm I think). It was the first department store in Sheffield to be fitted with escalators, which must have been a bit scary at the time.

When I was a kid there was a food hall downstairs called 'Grandways', although for some reason the carrier bags said 'Jackson's' on them. Thee tell me. They also sold paint downstairs and a selection of records (mostly on the mfp label). I bought Pink Floyd's 'Relics' down there for £1.79!

It closed as a department store in 1980. It's still there but a shadow of its former self. Ground floor is a cafe and travel agents, and first floor was until recently an antiques market/junk shop. I heard that might be closing though, which is a shame, as you could get the odd bargain there.

See you when you come up I hope.

How sad to see the building looking like that. I worked there in 1960/61 on the "ladies fashions"...not sure if it is 1st or 2nd floor now.
I remember the tubes for the cash, the wooden escalaters that "clunked", the tokens which were given as change if you used a "Banners Cheque", and that everything HAD to be wrapped before it left the shop.
I think the staff entrance was on the side in your photo...opposite the little church used as their carpet stockroom.
All the older members of staff had to be addressed as Miss/Mrs?Mr ? no using christian names then.
I left Attercliffe in 61 but I think I saw it as Hitchins on return visits.
Gosh it seems a lifetime ago now.:)

This is a story my grandma used to tell me. She went in Banners one day with her sister (in the 1920s) they went to the hat department where they tried on a few hats, my grandmas sister found one she liked so she kept it on and left her old hat behind and walked out with the new one and never paid for it.

Right that's it, the phantom hat thief of Attercliffe Common has finally been tracked down, she will be named and shamed by Harry and Christa this very evening. :hihi:

Right that's it, the phantom hat thief of Attercliffe Common has finally been tracked down, she will be named and shamed by Harry and Christa this very evening. :hihi:

Only if there isnt much going off in Leeds!:hihi:

What I remember most about banners is that it was the first shop that i know to have a wooden escalator quite grand at the time.They used to have some kind of a cheque system of their own with banners tokens but don't remember how it worked.
You used to get a Banners cheque for £20 & pay back £21 but when you went into Banners to spend it, any change you got was in their own money so you had to spend it all in their shop.Good eh.

Wow
thankyou people.so many memories from nicked hats to banners cheques in description.I too remember the wooden esculators,be great to document in pictures,i am going to contact them and see if there is any possibility of access for photos and history/stories.
Akadok as usual your a star thanks for the info.And August is a definate for a "Wander round Cliffe" when i come back for two weeks mate

please keep your memories and stories coming

Thankyou
Andy M:love:

Only if there isnt much going off in Leeds!:hihi:

:wink: only if someone hasn't broken a nail in the Headingley area. :wink: that will surely bump anything sheffield related out of the bulletin:wink:

i can see the bulletin, now.(tongue in cheek mode ON)

"in l**ds market, a fruit and veg stall was offering pears at 45p/lb... A bus driver let his passengers on in the Boar Lane area, and in other news, three primary schools were arsoned in Sheffield, with the loss of all pupils and teachers." :wink:

I popped into Banners last week. The antiques centre that used to have the whole second floor now has one room on the ground floor and the cafe has most of the rest, with a travel agency off to one side.

In the cafe there is a big picture of the last day that the shop was open, with all the sale signs around and people grabbing bargains.

Hi Hennypenny
Thankyou for your reply,I gather the upper floors are now closed.Be great to go up an down in the lift again..

Thankyou

Andy m

Andy

There's some pictures of Banners in Jack Wrigley's last but one book. One of the outside and one inside. I saw Jack last night but forgot to ask him if he had any more. Doh!

I've just remembered summat else though - Banners was the first shop where I ever saw CCTV cameras! They were these black cylindrical things hanging from the ceiling, that followed your every move. Scared me witless, don't know why cos I never nicked owt.

The lifts were still there a few months back when I went in, or at least one of them, presumably to take you to the antiques shop. I was too scared to use it though, just as I was 30 years ago. Give me them escalators any day.

i can remember going to banners banners with my mumn when i was little they did have money shoots what i rember about it was the lift it was just like an metal cage. you could see the people in it as it moved on to the next floor.and the escaltor was made of wood.the had their own money as well .the were plastic discs called banner checks which you could spend around thestore:love:

I read somewhere that banners had the first escalator outside of london.

I remember Banners as it was one of the few stores to accept cheques (not the current sort) but the one's you bought for a shilling a week from the man from the Pru.I recall passing my 11+ and having to travel with my mum from Heeley to Banners ( a long way on the tram) to buy my new school uniform.sadly my mum never had enough cash to buy herself a hair ribbon!

I worked there around '69 in the supermarket downstairs. It had no connection with the Banners business, Jacksons rented the basement. Banners management brought Jacksons in to try and attract people back to the store. It was owned by Jacksons Bakery (who I think are now owned by Sainsburys?) though they used the 'Grandways' name. In those days most of the Grandways stores were in west yorkshire. The manager when I started there was a guy called ''Nobby'' Clark (from Handsworth I think) brilliant bloke. Any old employees out there??

I worked at Banners in 1960.....but it WAS John Banners then........I got married, went away and next time I looked it was Hitchins..........

Banners never changed to Hitchens. Hitchens was a little further along towards town and used to be Littlewoods.

Banners never changed to Hitchens. Hitchens was a little further along towards town and used to be Littlewoods.
Oh right, crikey! I must have been away longer than I thought:) thanks for that.:thumbsup:

i worked at banners in 65 till 67 on footwear miss scaife was 1st sales nellie and jenny in kids annie fletcher mrs smith and christine carr in mens and a load of partimers agnes ada jean mrs kenny and many more my name then was pat halliday bye

Jabberwocky
You are right about the coal trucks being before the bridge. The entrance to the yard was on the corner of Carlisle Street and Upwell street, where the traffic lights are. My father was a coalman and loaded his lorry from there. I worked for a very short time as a Saturday girl in Banners. I too remember having to put money in a chute and having to wait for the receipt and change. Also having to wrap up everything. Even garden hosepipe. My parents loved shopping at Banners. Happy Days.

I remember getting excited when my mother told me we were off there on the bus, I used to love trains and the sight of those coal trucks... god they made my day!

I worked at Banners in 1960.....but it WAS John Banners then........I got married, went away and next time I looked it was Hitchins..........

Did you know a shop assistant called Jacqueline Youd? Always wondered what happened to her.

I went to Banners as a kid during the 50's. My most vivid memory is buying a Davy Crocket hat (this was a fur hat - probably rabbit - with a tail at the back) costing 19 shillings & 11 pence. The toy department was great and was in the basement if my memory is correct.
On the same side of the road as Banners was Burgess clothes store where all the kids went to get their Whitsuntide clothes.For most kids it was the only time of the year that they got new clothes.

I worked at Banners as a 15yr old girl (office junior). On a Saturday morning because they were so busy I had to work in the "tube room, so was responsible for sending those metal containers back. The shop that became Hitchens was Littlewoods. The staff entrance was as you said, on the side. The manager at that time was Mr White. That was a long time ago now, but it was a lovely shop in those days.

I WORKED AT bANNERS AS A 15 YEAR OLD GIRL STRAIGHT FROM SCHOOL IN THE OFFICES.oN A SATURDAY AS IT WAS SO BUSY I HAD TO WORK IN THE TUBE ROOM SENDING ALL THE CONTAINERS BACK WITH THE CHANGE THE CASHIERS HAD PUT IN THEM. YOUR'E RIGHT THE STAFF ENTRANCE WAS ON THE SIDE OPPOSITE THE LITTLE CHURCH. tHE SHOP THAT BECAME HITCHENS WAS LITTLEWOODS.

I remember buying Banners money from the shop across the road:17/6 to the £1. Some poor person must have been selling to the shop for 10/- to the £1

In about 1950 i worked briefly in a shop called Turners opposite banners,a real old fsshioned place that was,it had a pawnbroker dept too. anyboddy rember it?

I worked there around '69 in the supermarket downstairs. It had no connection with the Banners business, Jacksons rented the basement. Banners management brought Jacksons in to try and attract people back to the store. It was owned by Jacksons Bakery (who I think are now owned by Sainsburys?) though they used the 'Grandways' name. In those days most of the Grandways stores were in west yorkshire. The manager when I started there was a guy called ''Nobby'' Clark (from Handsworth I think) brilliant bloke. Any old employees out there??

i worked at banners in 1970 on the menswear dept would love to hook up with anyone who worked there between 70 and 72

my name is glenn tomlinson anyone out there remember me ??????

can we not merge these two threads on Banners, mods?