DavidFrance

I say it repeatedly: Third rail electrification of Hope Valley. We don't need speeds in excess of 100mph, It wouldn't need unsightly and expensive gantries.No problems in the tunnels. Plenty of rolling stock already exists and the new fleet at Merseyside could be used as a model. Clean air at Midland Station. Quicker acceleration times . Job could be done in two years. With all the money Network Rail has spent on steel fencing all of our rail lines to keep out trespassers, safety is NOT an issue.

South Yorkshire Police don't play deaf blind and mute, they do it very professionally ! And completely and consistently. Especially in regard to deliveroo bikers and zombies who have made me refuse to come to Sheffield in the evenings.

The name rings a bell but I can't recall anyone in my age group during my 19 years there. You are probably referring to the house on the corner of Fentonville and Croydon St. I have a feeling the children there were in a different age group to the core group of youngsters born in the War years who have by and large stayed in touch....and the survivors still meet up from time to time.

Your cubs and scouts kept a trail wagon (handcart to you) in the yard behind No 7 Fentonville St where your Arkela or Scout Leader lived. There was a Toc H sign outside his house. I lived at No 64 and went to Sunday School at St Johns but later joined the Cubs at St Andrews. I was christened in 1942 at St Johns, the church that is now a Tesco. I wonder if they'd give me a discount? I used to love Parade Sundays and Whitsuntide Parades. Drums and bugles. Fantastic!

It is impossible to have faith in an organisation which puts shutters up at its main interface with the public as SYP have done at all their divisional offices. I can't count the huge number of offences I have seen being committed on Chesterfield Road right outside the police station which says PRIVATE NO PUBLIC ADMISSION. Their motto seems to be See Nowt, Say Nowt, Do Nowt. And as for the Very Reverend Doctor Crime Commissioner, he must now be certain of his knighthood.......job done, in a city where stabbings, shootings, and using a car as a weapon is an everyday event.

There is a Gov.uk website where you can type in a reg number, check that it is the car you saw, and it tells you whether that car is taxed or not and whether it has an MoT. You can then report it...ANONYMOUSLY ! They ask Questions about where and when etc but I can tell you from experience it works. I think many of the cars you see parked on verges etc with For Sale in the window will often show up as being SORNed...very naughty, cos, as is pointed out above, no tax, no insurance ! See https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax

And if those two "kids" had killed a child or OAP crossing the road that would be justified, would it? All law breaking is anti-social. The phrase means it is not in the interests of everyone in the community. It's why we have laws. If they are not enforced what is the point? You want mob rule? The law of the jungle? The job of the police is to protect everyone....and if they are doing their job properly they should not be criticised.

The best thing about Octopus is that their Chief Executive wants to abolish standing charges. They are an absolute rip off but all the energy providers are obliged to have them. I have been with Octopus three years and have no complaints whatsoever. They give good advice and in the recent trials of economy hours we saved over £11. Our amazing fixed price tariff which we were fortunate to have started before the crisis is coming to an end and Octopus are advising us to go variable until the market stabilises. Ovo's "cheap rate" may not be cheaper by the end of his year. Every other company is charging the standard floating rate. After bad experiences with FIrst Utility and Green Energy Network I'd say Octopus are a no brainer. No connection with the firm except as a customer.

I have a feeling that the Carnell family lived near me on Langdon St, Sharrow, in the 50s and were "in business" but I can't recall the nature. Could this be the same?

They are Jehovah's Witnesses, I had a visit and checked them out when I saw them all getting together later. They are genuinely seeking to help immigrants who don't speak English. They won't bother you again.

Concede you are right. But I agree that taxis use it all the time. And quite a few non taxis, too. In fact I have seen many drivers making right turns in every direction there. What is unclear is if you can access Shoreham St inbound from Havelock Bridge.

We;; as I read it that's where the camera is going to operate....so be careful! Taxis ARE allowed to make that right turn. The signs clearly indicate Bus AND taxis.

Every time I pass Alderson Road/Bramall Lane junction there is someone making an illegal (and dangerous ) right turn. I can't wait for cameras to be installed there...but instead they are being put at Queens Road/Havelock Bridge where there are so many confusing signs that it would be a logical challenge to any summons. But the council are only doing what the Police should be doing...and can't be bothered.

I believe it was closed to passenger traffic by Beeching but has remained open for cement traffic. Bug the resulting diversion into and out of Sheffield Midland added 40 minutes to the journey time for all passenger trains from the East Midlands to Manchester with the predictable result that fewer people made those journeys. There is a smartphone app on the app stores which tells all about the Hope Valley plans. Search Hope Valley Railway Upgrade. It's educational and informative. And gives you advance notice of closures etc.

The Brilliant Brit !! Sadly at Bardney I saw nothing but BR Standards. You probably spent as many hours as I did at the Twentywell Cutting as a lad on a bike.. Have you seen what they're doing there now to undo the evil works of Dr Beeching? Another case of "We knew best". Closing the Chesterfield/Manchester link and making everything go in and then out of the city was plain daft. But demolishing the island platform was dafter. And Network Rail are spending millions putting in a passing loop at Bamford so that trains will get held up at Picadilly for even longer? (You will recall I strongly favour 3rd rail electrification for this line and many others serving this region). (We could have driverless trains and call it "levelling up").

OMG ! The lengths some people went to in order to drown hundreds and thousands of maggots. (My Dad, of blessed memory, was one such but couldn't bothered with public transport, He borrowed or owned various cars which he filled with like minded blokes, fishing baskets on the roof rack or in the boot, and deserted the family every Sunday.) I recall being dragged along to Bardney, opposite the sugar factory and spending the most boring day of my life watching the odd train go past and the steam rising from the chimneys. Somehow it didn't catch on in my genes, Thank God! But at least them that went on the trains or in the coaches didn't risk their lives hurtling back along the A57 tanked up with Batemans Bitter. Just think, if coarse fish had been edible it'd have put most of Sheffield's chippies out of business! Happy Christmas!!

Went to Leeds yesterday and walked 8 miles around Headingley and the city centre. It makes Sheffield look like a village. Leeds has: An airport; electrified trains to London (for 30 years); two vibrant waterside developments; a market; a large central shopping area where people can be seen carrying shopping bags; a huge number of food and drink outlets; a motorway ring road; two massive university complexes; Three major TV studio centres; a test match cricket ground; a buzzing atmosphere. Oh yes, and a John Lewis. Sheffield on my last visit at the height of the holiday season was busy but nobody was shopping. (Atkinsons had about 20 people wandering around but not buying much. A manager told me that their footfall had been hit hard by the Cole Bros closure). Compared with photos from the 50s, 60s and 70s, the city centre looked closed. But it has Meadowhall which is now a sterile shopping experience, a third rate railway station, a pathetic excuse for a ring road, an ex-airport and one 20 miles away soon to be an ex-airport, but it has 28 year old trams on a network crying out for new routes. If you want to eat well you have to know about Kelham and Rutland because the city centre has been taken over by Chinese students and their preferences. Victoria Quays continues to fail to attract interest. The former shopping centres at Heeley Bottom, Abbeydale Road and Ecclesall Road are a dismal shadow of their previous lives. It'll take more than a Youtube Video to match that place at the top of the M1. Sheffield has always lacked clout.

But be very cautious. Recently there has been an expose' on firms who offer temporary insurance but don't actually insure you, just give you a piece of worthless paper. Police might be sympathetic if you were caught but the other driver in a prang could take you to the cleaners.

Yep. That's why The Sun outsells Methodist Recorder by about 3 million to one. Give them a try? http://www.methodistrecorder.co.uk/

I just want to be around when you are 70. But then you'll have messed the place up so much that maybe I won't bother. You'll have enough on your plate.

Look at the broken trees recently planted. See the litter bins set on fire. (By the Meadowhead entrance this weekend) And what about the animals killed at the petting farm? And in nearby Greenhill Park, quad bikes tearing up the turf, smashed play equipment. Not quite the paradise you suggest. And I see in The Star the police rammed two off roaders who've been plaguing the whole area.Nice people.

Governments don't give birth. Parents do. The failure is entirely down to them. They failed to show their offspring the way that things have to be made; that nature is a wondrous thing which is easily destroyed; that the true value of possessions lies in their fragility; and that living in society imposes responsibilities which mean that everything we do and say impacts on our fellow beings. I ask myself why I didn't smash anything up and I know it was out of fear for what my dad would do and say if I had arrived home on the end of a policeman's arm. But I also saw the futility. I was down Little London one night, trainspotting, when there was a commotion from the carriage sidings over the high wall. Standing on my crossbar I could see a gang of yobs smashing all the plates and cups they had taken from a dining car. I got the hell out of it. What did they achieve by their actions? Nothing. I felt tainted by what I'd seen. That was in the mid to late Fifties. After that cinema seats and rowing boats were fair game. The rampage started and has never stopped.

Walking through Graves Park this morning resurrected long ago memories of tram rides to Graves Park with a jam jar and a fishing net. But where I used to see minnows and sticklebacks and where people used to go for a row in a skiff in the lovely middle lake with an island, it is now fenced off, silted up, and overburdened with ducks and canada geese. It's a mess. But back in the Fifties a half hour in a rowing boat at Graves Park, Endcliffe or Forge Dam was a family event or maybe a courting couple's adventure. People sat on the benches and watched. It was a truly lovely part of living in Sheffield. But in the 60s the yobs struck. They broke all the tree saplings, they smashed and sank the boats. All these lovely lakes that formed the "golden frame" which Sheffield Newspapers used as their theme for an annual calendar. And for half a century the lakes have rotted. But what of the yobs? They will now be in their 50s or 60s and may be walking their grandkids round these parks. How many are still alive? How many see their folly? How few would dare to admit they were among the gangs who trashed our parks? The trouble is that nothing has changed. If the rowing boats were put back and the lakes dredged and restored like they are doing at Forge Dam the wreckers would still be in charge. The "younger generation" will inherit nothing of any value and it is their own fault.

Sorry but you are quite wrong. There is a worldwide crisis of the helium gas used in balloons; there is a worldwide crisis in wildlife swallowing discarded plastics; there is a worldwide crisis in anything which can cause large scale fires. Is the best you can say to respect the loss of a human life "I will float a balloon for you"? In which case you clearly don't have much to say worth saying. This is nothing short of mass Facebook hysteria which is all too prevalent. Haven't you got a brain to think for yourself? But you are right about Bonfire Night. Let's turn our attention to that.

My Dad worked for an ice cream maker on Grange Crescent Road called Matt's. I believe that was short for Mattessandro. This was in the years just after the War. He drove a big Austin float with brass twirls on each corner, as well as a Fordson van. The ice cream was made in an off-shot of the house on the corner of Cemetery Road. I recall being with him at Castleton Garland just by the Maypole Dancing and on another occasion at a Fete at Renishaw Hall. On both occasions the day ended in a thunderstorm, which we seemed to get much more often in those days. Talking about which was the best ice cream? No contest. There was no such thing as a bad ice cream when you were a kid. They were all a special treat.