Jump to content

peterw

Members
  • Content Count

    2,118
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Community Reputation

10 Neutral

About peterw

  • Rank
    Registered User
  • Birthday 18/04/1929

Personal Information

  • Location
    Manchester
  • Interests
    Computers & Sheffield history
  • Occupation
    Retired Journalist

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

  1. Bela Lugosi certainly played at the Lyceum and changes are that a number of the theatre’s advertising bills are still available for you to look at. But while I know my memory is not what it was, might there be any chance that he made two visits? I remember a Star photgrapher catching him along with his equally scary Frankenstein film star Boris Karloff, certainly between the years 1945-46 when they stayed at the Grand Hotel
  2. Was the Vanguard the car with that split windscreen or am I thinking of another? My first was a police Wolseley which came complete with bell and sign. It cost thirty shillings and went like a bomb. I had to remove the Police sign, but against my condition of sale I kept the bell, which was in good working order.
  3. If you are in your 70s they will be your parents, if you are younger they could be your grandparents. Doris Parker’s maiden name was Wright. She was born 1898 at 15 Bridport Road, Darnall, Sheffield, and died 1988 aged 90. She was an excessively large woman and may have died in a Doncaster hospital but been buried or cremated from her home in Greasborough, which was opposite a church (possibly CofE). Her husband, Bertie, was the fourth in a family of several brothers and one sister, Ethel. Bertie’s older brother was Thomas Frederick Parker. Other brothers were Harold, Percy and Herbert. Bertie Parker and Doris had a son, Fred, who married one Annie McDonald at Christ Church, Attercliffe, in June 1936. I attended the wedding but was too young to know who the lucky couple were. Fred was born on 19 April 1915 but died in 1973. As yet, I know nothing about Annie McDonald. Their parents (possibly your grandparents or great-grandparents) were Frederick and Ellen Parker, and their parents were William and Sarah. All 12 members of that family grew up and lived at 21 Frank Place, Attercliffe, Sheffield. In 1948 there was a Bertie Parker, greengrocer at Shireland Lane. There was also an Albert Parker at 32 Church Street, Greasborough, and his forename is of some significance to me. If any of these names ring a bell, or if you know any Parkers still living in the area of Greasborough or Thorpe Hesley etc., who might be related, please get in touch with me by Personal Message or of course on this thread. I have a very valid reason for this appeal. There’s no money in it, but my two-year search will be concluded and my hopefully newly-found Parker may find it of great interest. Thanks everyone, in anticipation.
  4. Thanks Rivelin6, all help is appreciated and I have to say that despite its relatively small percentage of really despicable people, Sheffield Forum and the vast majority of its users are the Bees Knees at offering real help. Apologies for the small rant but I have just opened up a posting that I thought might be interesting. No names, but someone who had chosen to supply information had either spelled one word incorrectly or simply made a spelling error in his/her reply. Amid a small mountain of real help, one typically unhelpful individual decided to take the helper to task by calling him/her a “dumbass”. That was followed by a Forumer who suggested banning that offensive person. Good idea, but I would much prefer giving that person a spelling challenge that I have used over the years to partially test budding young reporters. Just five words in everyday use — easy enough for a person who can spell “cemetery”. So, how about someone giving that person those words over the telephone and recording his/her immediate, off-the-cuff spellings, then giving all forumers the result? If her/she gets them all right, I will give £100 to that person’s choice of charity if he/she will do the same if he/she fails. The money to be held by a third, trustworthy person. Sorry, but I am so angry. The challenge stands. If the person refuses to accept we will know that ‘cemetery’ is probably the only real word in his/her vocabulary.
  5. Nice one owd tup! My grandfather’s brother, also in his class at school well before the turn of the century, desperately needed to relieve himself of a sudden attack of “dire here” and asked if he might be excused. Teacher refused, my grandfather said “**** on t’seat Tommy” so he did!
  6. Because of the letter G I have spent more than one year trying to trace the history of a four-month-old Kathleen Parker, daughter of a “G”ertie Parker, who on 25 May 1918 was buried at Darnall Cemetery in the grave of my paternal grandparents who were Walter and Mary Ann Wright. Their names appear on the gravestone — but Kathleen Parker does not. So naturally I assumed that the child was buried in the wrong grave, especially with me being now 81 years old and never ever hearing a word about anyone named Parker. But then, thanks to Sheffield Forumers, I find that the child’s mother, “G”’ertie, was living at 15 Bridport Road, Darnall (my birthplace) along with my paternal grandmother! Thanks again to Sheffield Forumers, I now know that “Gertie” was in reality BERTIE and the husband of my father’s elder sister Doris, who because of family feuds in the 1920s I only ever met three times. Now, still on the family trail I need to find a member of the Parker family because before I die I want to see little Kathleen’s short life acknowledged, and I need a family member to sanction this. Darnall Cemetery is vandalised and no longer the place to do it in, but if I can find where Doris is buried I thought a plaque or something, in little Kathleen’s memory, either on her stone or somewhere close by. Doris, I recall, lived in a large terraced cottage immediately opposite a church at which, I recall, a younger, female member of the family was married during the 1980s. Doris must have been a good reason for gossip because through no fault of her own she was well overweight (20-plus stones) and confined to her bed in the front room. I recall she wanted desperately to be carried or stretchered across the road to see the young girl (a member of the family) married, but needed her doctor’s say-so. Whether that happened I do not know because for family reasons I never saw her again. Doris I understand had two sons who were older than me and could still be living, but I doubt it. They were the cousins I knew existed because my grandmother had a photo of them, but never saw until either the late 1970s or early 80s. The girl who was to be married at the church across the road could have been either the daughter of one of them, or their daughter-in-law to be. Final info is that her doctor attended her every day, she had a budgerigar that knew more words and phrases than most because it was her constant companion. What happened to her husband “Bertie” I do not know, but if Doris had not stayed married to him, or perhaps continued to live with him?, her sons might not be Parkers. But at the moment I am hoping they are, and members of the family are still living in or around the area. I only saw Doris three times. I drove my father over there to see her. He was not a nice man and had been estranged from her from before I was born in 1929! As a teenager I had lived at Deep Lane, Shiregreen, so I knew Grange Lane, then I turned right on the A629 with Keppel’s Column on my left, then drove down a long incline and took — I think — the second main road on the left for quite a distance before parking outside her home (on my left) which was unexpectedly large inside. The church, as I have said, was directly opposite. My thanks for your interest and any help you can give me in finding the right Parkers. If anyone prefers to remain anonymous, please do not hesitate to send me a P.M. But I sill be coming on every day, looking for any sign of progress. I’ve been told my a quest is a bit OTT but despite the little girl’s age, she had been buried, obviously, with my grandmother’s blessing and I would think that the stone she might have wanted would have carried her name. It more than likely would have done so — but my father bought the stone on hire-purchase (poor as hell in those days) and any child of his sister’s would have been of no consequence to him. That’s about how nice a person he was.
  7. I e-mailed an old school mate today, just to swap a few surnames of our teachers.Without warning my old, unreliable and sometimes tricky mind brought into focus a wartime teacher at High Storrs Grammar who arrived from the Channel Islands to teach Scripture, or if you prefer it, Religious Education. His name was Ivor Macdonald Queen and he was the minister at the old Portmahon Chapel. I was around 13 years old when along with my schoolmates we decided to give it a go and went to a Sunday service which he conducted. I do not remember a word of the sermon, but I do remember looking around the chapel,which was quite large compared to other Baptist chapels. But it was in a sad, sad state and hadn’t seen even a lick of paint over the past 50 or more years. I think we helped our school teaching reverend paint in over a period of three Saturdays, but it was wartime and paint was scarce so we hardly managed to touch all four walls. What happened after that I do not know, but it has been so interesting to read what has been said by forumers. From memory, I think the entrance was quite imposing and there might have been a dome. I am now going to have a squint at the available pictures, and I might indulge myself and buy one. I really need to test my memory though, re the entrance and the dome!
  8. Yes Rivelin6, I have sent for the certificate which I now believe will be for little Kathleen but will show that she was born in Rotherham. I just have to wait and see, but I’ll be back. Yes too re your offer of help. I feel may need some! Rotherham does mean something, to me, but all the people will now be dead.
  9. Thank for all your replies, and may I be one of the first to offer you all my best wishes for the new year. Believe it or not, I have no feelings about what my father did, nor my grandmother. They were consulting adults, as someone has said. What really riles me is that, although I have no proof nor any reason to suspect it, for all I know he or she might have started their affair during the months that my mother was carrying me, and that does hurt, believe me! On the other hand, that may not have happened and I could just as easily be blaming them for something they did not do. But this I can tell you. My brother, who was denied by my father for some months after he had been born, will not hear a word said against him. We obviously speak to each other, and we occasionally meet. On my 80th birthday, at my request, he brought me a couple of photographs of the family grave which I — and he — anticipated would have the names of our paternal grandparents together with the name of our father. And so it did — but my brother also came with a mystery that he challenged me to solve. That grave also contains one other body whose name does not appear on the headstone. It is the body of a four-months-old child, and it is recorded in the register of burials as being that of Kathleen Parker whose mother Gertie then lived at 15 Bridport Road which was the one-up one-down home in which I was born. At that time, I wasn’t even born. So my by then widowed paternal grandmother lived there, presumably with her daughter Doris, and three sons Frederick, George, and Albert Ernest who was to become my father. Doris soon left the family home, and so too did Frederick who joined the Sheffield Pals regiment and was killed in action, 1917. My father would have arrived home from the Truancy School that Sheffield’s Education Committee owned in the Rivelin Valley, and he would have been aged 14. Kathleen Parker joined the happy home during that first world war. Why, I have no idea. I do not even know who she was, but I do know who she was not, and that is a member of the Wright family. But she may well have been had Frederick survived the Great War. It is almost two years since my brother set me the task of finding out who Gertie Parker was. I am on the last leg of my search because I feel that whoever that 4-month-old child belonged to, she did at least deserve the recognition denied her on the gravestone. I’m thinking in terms of a memorial plaque or something, within Darnall Cemetery, and when I know for certain you’ll be invited. So, you will have gathered that I have thoughts about little Kathleen who might easily have been my cousin, regardless of whether or not Frederick lived or died. I believe this will be proved to be true when confirmation arrives early in the new year. Unfortunately, with what my father did over the years I have to hope that the confirmation I seek fails to be conclusive because even at the age of 14 he wasn’t exactly the best of sons and his mother knew that. Anyway, I expect to be back with the answer towards the end of January and as I have said, whoever Kathleen Parker belonged to, the little lass deserved to be recognised. So too did her mother, Gertie, who will have died many years ago. But if anyone, any Parker knows of a Gertie Parker who would have been born at or before the turn of the century, I would certainly like to hear from them. Gertie must have told someone about her child, regardless of whether it was a love-child (I hope) of Frederick or a lust child of Albert Ernest?
  10. Poppins — My grqndmother was my maternal grandmother. The affair had continued for around five years, and certainly until my grandmother owned up to it and confessed to my mother. They never spoke to each other for a good number of years, although I continued to get presents from my grandmother and nothing spoiled my Christmases. I wrote some years ago about my father, but what I did not say then was that I did have the pleasure of telling him that I knew exactly what kind of a scumbag he was. What he did has never affected me because I knew he was a scumbag and it didn’t even surprise me. Sometimes can find reasons to forgive him his every action — except that one. I have a brother considerably younger than myself, who believes the sun shined out of his backside. He never once suffered what I suffered, `and I do not suppose he would believe me if I told him that for the first eight or nine months of his life my father never once made an attempt to even see him let alone hold him in his arms. Any basic excuse from me for my father’s actions would first have to be the loss of his eldest brother, his idol I understand, in the Great War, and the family’s only bread-winner; his father having died aged 46. hen came those lean years when unemployment was rife. We lived through it and ate well, primarily because he had two allotments and grew the necessary vegetables on one, and chrysanthemums for sale from the other. He was also the bee’s knees at D.I.Y. I tend to think that he regarded my arrival as a disaster and treated it as such. Birthdays and Christmas bought me some wonderful and very expensive toys including a gauge 0 railway layout the size of a 19th century billiards room that housed it. Before and during the second world war my mother was caretaker at Sharrow’s Bottom Snuff Mill, and the room, from Frog Walk, looking across the dam, was on the extreme left of the main entrance. I suspect they were all given by way of an excuse for his tempers and violence; both of which helped my mother to lose that much sought after position that brought her 30 shilling a week in wages, an entire house with all utility bills paid, and in effect a job for life. The previous caretaker had been a Mrs Hogg who had grown too old to carry out her duties, but was retained in her position when my mother was originally hired to help her!
  11. THIS History and Ex-Pats Section is basically of interest to the older generations. I do not know our percentage in relation to the entire membership, nor do I know the numbers of younger generations who follow us out of interest but some years ago I unfolded my own story of cruelty at the hands of my father and I was surprised to learn how many other victims it attracted. The question I am going to ask today is of a similar nature; another “how many”. Those forumers who meet socially and as a consequence know each other will be unable to tell me what I would like to know, but I wonder … who dares and who doesn’t dare? When I was in my 50s my mother, in conversation, revealed her own secret life and thus unknowingly unlocked my memory of days before my fifth year of existence when one day I heard my father arguing with my grandmother about a playing card that she had not put on show in her bedroom window. They had gone upstairs after my grandmother had asked him to do some work for her and he had told her he needed to see what she wanted done. I began to follow them, but was thrown down by my father who very viciously told me to wait downstairs. I had a pencil in my hand, and on the way down the sharpened end stuck in my forehead and drew blood. After what seemed to be along time they came downstairs, saw what had happened and took me to Sheffield Royal Infirmary. Today, hospitals would ask questions, but no such luck in those days. Having reached my mid-fifties,, and with both my grandmother and my father dead, my mother probably thought she could speak more freely. And of course she could. I also remember my two aunts — then my mother’s unmarried sisters — arguing a week or so later, and one saying “If you won’t tell her then I will.” Other snippets of that extremely serious conversation came into my mind and after putting other incidents together I knew that they had been talking about telling my grandmother that they knew more about her playing card than she had given them credit for. I now have just the one aunt who is 97. She is quite a religious woman and for some reason refuses to admit that the conversation took place. But it did. In fact it cleared up other avenue of doubts, like why had my grandfather suddenly taken to drink and why was my father never invited or welcomed to the family’s Christmas day get-together at his home when the rest of us were there. Shortly after that ancient, very painful incident I was surprised to receive a spanking new pedal car from my unemployed father, and from my shop-keeping grandmother a two-wheeled pedal cycle with runners on each side to enabled me to ride. Christmas had been and gone, so too had my birthday. One gift was not affordable, the other one was, and from that I now gather that they had both been purchased by my grandmother. Today’s generations speak more freely about sexual matters. From what I have written you will have gathered that the playing card indicated that my grandmother was at home but grandfather was not. With me in tow (I was then below school age), we would call when the playing card was in the window, but not at other times. I always thought it was a bit odd, but then I was only a stupid little kid. Plain talking, my father was having it off with my grandmother. Put another way, my grandmother was having it off with my father. Who, among the Forum’s writers and readers, know of, or have personally done something similar? We are all aware it goes on: young wives with brothers-in-law and fathers-in-law, young husbands with mothers-in-law. It might be morally wrong, but it doesn’t appear to be legally wrong.
  12. You are all so right! I’ve asked this same question about the game many times but no-one I knew had ever heard of it - and that includes practically every sports desk on every daily newspaper and a fair number of evening newspapers too. I always thought it might do well at the Crucible, in conjunction with televised snooker. Trouble is, it could be over in hours, or days but not in minutes!
  13. Didn’t Reginald Dixon live at Nether Edge during the war? I seem to recall he lived at the top of a steep hill, with a newsagent at the bottom. His dog used to fetch his morning paper!
  14. WHEN I was about twenty years of age I once went into a pub at Millhouses where I was invited to play what to me was a new ‘game’, strictly for the snooker table. They called it golf. I wonder, does anyone recall this seemingly popular Saturday afternoon sport, and the rules.I can remember the rules, so if anyone wants to try their hand at it I will come back to this thread and explain them in detail. Good game — but you need to have patience. Incidentally, it was one of those things that one remembers the day and date. We went in the pub about one hour before the start of the Manchester November Handicap. I had £1 on Regret, the winner which came in, I think, at 40-1. On the pub radio (no telly then) the commentator told us the entire racecourse was foggy, but he was certain that Billet had won. He changed his mind hastily! The bookie’s runner was across the, roadmfrom the pub and I picked up my winnings later that evening..
  15. Thanks everyone — particularly HughW. Search over, person found and spoken to by a friend, but does not want to know about, or have any contact with me. Long story, but apologies very sincerely offered for something that happened more than 60 years ago were not accepted. I admit that the episode was unforgivable, but I had hoped that time might have healed. Alas, it hasn’t. nce again, my thanks for your replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.