castley

deeno, Your great grandfather and great grandmother lived on edgar st. at number eighteen. I remember your grandfather and grandmother well and your mum. there were only girls in the family when I knew them but I know that your grandad desired a son, I hope that he got his wish. I lived at number eighteen edgar st. until 1956 and left after the death of my father and never returned.

sorry but this is about pitsmoor again. I left sheffield many years ago, around fifty. I lived on edgar st. from 45 until 56. I went on google earth recently and viewed pitsmoor from on high. It has certainly changed. I saw a lot of green and I hope that it is as pleasent to live in as it looks from a few hundred metres. Some one on the forum said that they have cleared the slums in pitsmoor . Good for them and I suppose they are best gone and that hindsight is better through rose coloured specs. how ever the memories linger and they are not the memories of living in a slum or being deprived of anything, they are the memories of youth and vigour. The dirty streets were our playground with the odd sojourn to smiths field or the wreck at the end of edgar st. for football or cricket. After school there was the play centre , anyone out there remember them? For the life of me I can`t remember the name of the school where the play centre was but it was a handy place for winter evenings. And of course there was sutherland road baths, remember the bath tickets given out at school? I think they allowed you to swim for half the normal price.Ok I know, enough already just one more thing. How is it that the excuse for kids getting in trouble today is often said to be because they are bored, computers, television and even money to spend seem to leave them wanting something more. In a way, I as a child, had a better life in the forties and fifties than the kids of today, the streets may have been grimy, shoes sometimes may have had holes in them and money to spend may have been little but we played until we were ready to drop and we had the pleasure of growing up without all the pressures of today. Just one more thing,the back door of our house could be opened without a key but we never felt unsafe. It seems incredible to me now that we all slept safely in our beds or left the house unattended with a lock that could be opened with a nail, as used in wood, and that nobody ever bothered about being broken into. I now live in a respectable neighbourhood, the streets are quiet and life is pleasent and in the eighteen years that I have lived here I have witnessed nothing but concord but just a quarter of a mile away a daughter stabbed her father to death, drugs involved I believe, and I avoid the city center at night and the back door certainly cannot be opened with a nail. night all.

I`m always impressed with other peoples memories. I left burngreave secondry modern in 1953. The only house name I can remember is BOLSOVER and I am fairly sure that was the house I was in. There were others but they escape me. I can only remember two teachers, mr holly and mr houldsworth. Mr holly was the woodwork teacher and a decent individual. Mr houldsworth, if my memory is correct, was something of a sadist. He had a number of canes in a box on the wall and if you were unfortunate enough to be punished by him he would go through the rigmarole of deciding which cane size your misdemeanor deserved. I think that they were numbered 1 to 10. He would select one and swish it through the air while you were standing there awaiting your fate. He would finally select one and deliver it with gusto. I had it several times and probably deserved it. I called him a sadist but I don`t believe that he did me any lasting harm .I was certainly better behaved in his class than any other. I watched a documentary the other night in it a young girl of about fifteen told her mother to f... off, repeatedly. I think a few more Mr houldsworth`s are needed to teach the young of today to have respect for others` and indeed respect for themselves.

hi, left sheffield in 1960 to do national service and have only returned for a quick visit now and again, still have a few relatives in the area, I have lived in the midlands ever since. Sheffield seems to be thriving but there is something missing now. In the fifties it was a city that had been created by the people who had lived and prospered there and was in its own way unique. I haven`t visited all the cities in the u.k but I suspect that they have all, like sheffield, been tescoed and morrisoned to death and really you could, accents aside, be any where in the country. I have fond memories sheff. but they are all in the past and for me that was the best of sheffield. The place I live now is no different and has had every ounce of character ironed out of it in the last forty years. All the old names have gone , replaced by all the usual ones that have taken over every other city in the land.We may all be better off but we have definitly lost something.

cisco I believe i knew the walker family. I did most of my school years with their son , Freddie . Freddies dad died sometime in the early fifties and I think he had a buisness of some sort. There were two or three others, atleast one sister and I think two brothers. Freddies mum liked corgi dogs and there was always one around. both Freddie and I attended Burngreave boys school and were good friends until we left. Freddie left at christmas 1952 and I left at easter 1953 and I don`t think we ever met again. One thing is Freddie went to work for British rail .

does anyone out there remember the wiggy`s gas pipes. I had one about 1952. They were not held in high regard among enthusiasts but it served me well and never let me down and above all it was cheap, i bought it out of money saved from a paper round,my parents were funny like that. If you desired something then work and save for it was their motto. I can`t remember the price but it took ages to save for it , I think the paper round paid about seven shillings a week. I haven`t actually said what it was and suspect some of the younger readers wont know what it is............then again as far as I know they may still be sold and valued as a fashion icon in this day and age.

did I really have my medical for national service in a potted meat factory on or near ecclesall road. just can`t remember the name,mind you I did go in the Prince public house and have one or two pints before attending and that might explain the loss of memory, stones bitter in the fifties was really a fabulous drink. At the time I worked at a firm called Lockwood and carlisle and the prince public house was on the doorstep, I suppose the firm and the pub are long since gone.Good days the fifties, plenty of work and a feeling that this country had at last, after the war, entered a period of affluence and prosperity. Now we should be concerned about the state the country is in, in the fifties it was manufactured exports that made us affluent, manufactured exports get less and less . Now China is supplying us with more and more and we are making less and less and I see this as a disaster looming. In H g well`s Time machine the morlocks did every thing for the eloi until the eloi could do nothing for themselves and then they gobbled them up. well we in the west are the eloi and the future is threatening.politicians have a lot to answer for, they have led us into the swamplands and there is no way back.

what ever happened to the gloops club, hope i got the name right after all these years. also the star walk which took place around whitsun, i think, anyway i was a gloops club member and my dad took me to see the star walk.............or was it just a dream?

the name is wrong it is hadfields and a very famouse name in steel making. they specialised in special steels and were noted for the quality. my father worked there from the late twenties until his death in 55.Hadfields did a lot of things as well as special steels but i`m not sure what.... general engineering I should think. I never knew how many worked there but have waited outside for my dad at clocking off time and it seemed that there were at the very least hundreds of men employed there at that time. Sad to see the site now, just another shopping centre, how long is it going to be before we lose all our manufacturing and can produce nowt for ourselves.

sandy, i lived at 238 deerlands avenue, we left there about 1945. .at the time german prisoners of war were employed on road building , for a new housing estate, i think, and i used to go to the shops for them . some of them used to spend their break times making wooden toys. I was given a kind of bat with chickens on it and a weight hanging down on string, you made the weight swing and the chickens would peck at the bat as if feeding.It was all countryside at the back of our house then but I suspect it is a lot different now.

hi lived on edgar st. and I went to burngreave secondry modern and left in 1953. Played on smiths field and the wreck at the end of edgar st. Saw a photograph of edgar st recently, it looked pretty grim but I never noticed at the time and had some happy times there.

edgar street ,harleston street and petre street anybody out there who remember`s the early fifties in this area.haven`t seen it in forty years.