Michael Proctor

I walked along Fargate last week it appeared to have had little progress since my last visit, there was just 4 workers looking at the site, looking not working. Although the couple of small areas I could see looked high quality. If you manage to avert your eyes from the trip hazards and barriers the shops that are there are looking sad and low quality on a road that was once a very up market area. M and S is still there but looks old fashioned and out of place . Would it have been better to have spent some of the time and money attracting better shops and updating frontages instead of starting such an ambitious project. As an older citizen I realise the cobbles could be a problem for some but some attractive, smooth and less expensive pathways could have been laid causing less disruption .

The maximum at the two schools I attended, whitby Road juniors and Marlcliffe was limited to 4 strokes which I received on a couple of occasions. I remember receiving 4 strokes for not working hard enough at Whitby Road which resulted in my fingers swelling up so much I could hardly use a fork to eat my tea. I was scared my grandma might notice because I would have been in more trouble. Part of my induction into school life in the juniors was when my brother, who was 4 years older, demonstrated with a garden cane the horrible swishing sound which preceded the stinging pain. Schools were viewed differently in those days when my own children started school I vowed never to accept corporate punishment

I can remember seeing him when I was going to school in the 1950s at whitby Road juniors, he was trying to persuade the lollipop man to have a go on the crossing by offering him his pocket watch !. He always appeared to be smartly dressed , I think kids were wary of him mainly because he dressed differently from their own parents and grandparents. There was another darnall character I think people called him Joe Bug does anyone recollect him he always dressed in old tattered clothes and was dark bearded the only place I saw him was on Darnall Main Road heading into darnall

I passed my 11 plus in 1959 when I was at whitby Road school . I went to Marlcliffe school which was about as far away as I could have been from the Manor Estate where I lived . I was out of the house longer than when I started work at Hadfields in 1964.

I worked at Arthur Lee & Sons Ltd from 1965 until the early 1970 s . I worked in the Wages dept and then the Work Study dept , I did the wages for Alloy Steel Rods and SSP and can remember a few of the names on this link. My colleagues were, Ken Holder, Peter Jackson, Jill Kerrins, Julie Garner, Ray Hancock, Pat Thomas, Margaret Thomson, Joyce Lack, Tony Barker, Fred Oldham , Walter Clegg and many others . It was a good company with many long serving employees.

My recollections of Cravens are not as exciting as the other posts but here goes. Firstly the Whitby road school " houses" when I went there in the 1950s were Cravens, Hadfield, Hampton and Ellisons I was in Cravens. Secondly when I used to go for the family fish and chips to Lomas,s chip shop. The Cravens orders that were collected didn't queue they went straight to the the front . I suppose they had pre ordered but in fact they were mostly made up at the time making everyone else wait. It always seemed to take ages to get served so one day I went to the other less popular chip shop I got served really quickly but when I went back to my grandma's I hadn't got over the step when I was challenged with " you've been to Creegans ****** I was not the flavour of the month for a bit

I went to Marlcliffe from 1959 to 1964 ( Ewden) I lived on the Manor Estate so it was quite a journey. I remember Miss Nuttall, Mr Parkin and Miss Jackson who ran the rambling/walking club. In my year was Stuart Marples, David Brackenbury, Peter Frost , Christine Dixon , Sandra Witherley. Our sports ground became Myers Grove School so we had to travel to Firth Park.

I was born in Brittania Road darnall in 1947. I went to school at Whitby Road 1952 to 1959. My grandparents Ethel and Richard Thorpe lived on Boden road off Mandeville street. My other grandmother May Proctor lived on Elmham Road near High Hazel's Park. Darnall was a decent place to live.

My aunt and uncle plus their daughter were in the Rose's. Their names were Edna Colin and Anne Christian. I went several times to shows I guess it would be in the 1950,s and 1960,s