Memories of steelworkers

Hi

I wonder if anyone can help me, im a fine art student and i am creating the words of steel workers in forged steel for my final degree exhibition. I would dearly love some memories from sheffield steelworkers to be included. In your own words , even in your own handwriting..which i will reproduce in steel. Particularly of the work itself and how it made you feel in the steel foundry environment. To anyone that can help i would happily provide photographs framed of the finished piece, if your words are included. many thanks Lucianne

Hi

I wonder if anyone can help me, im a fine art student and i am creating the words of steel workers in forged steel for my final degree exhibition. I would dearly love some memories from sheffield steelworkers to be included. In your own words , even in your own handwriting..which i will reproduce in steel. Particularly of the work itself and how it made you feel in the steel foundry environment. To anyone that can help i would happily provide photographs framed of the finished piece, if your words are included. many thanks Lucianne

Hot, very dangerous but it,s in your blood,wouldnt change my job for the world

Hi

I wonder if anyone can help me, im a fine art student and i am creating the words of steel workers in forged steel for my final degree exhibition. I would dearly love some memories from sheffield steelworkers to be included. In your own words , even in your own handwriting..which i will reproduce in steel. Particularly of the work itself and how it made you feel in the steel foundry environment. To anyone that can help i would happily provide photographs framed of the finished piece, if your words are included. many thanks Lucianne

Itl was a hard life, but the pay was high for those days.. Young mans work..Dangerous and arduous.. The rolling mills were a sight to behold..Pulling and pushing bars of glowing hot steel through the rollers. They came out from the shift, and downed 9 or 10 Pints no problem.. replacing lost fluids.. They spent their money on the luxuries that couldnt be bought on a normal wage..great bunch of guys. Earned every penny...Like the Miners but not quite as dangerous.Good luck with your project..PK

There is a book with a lot of steelworkers thoughts and saying called "Hell but I would go back tomorrow".I think they have it in the libraries.

very hard work ... try going to magna tells you a bit of the history of the steel works

Lots of forum members fathers will have been steelworkers in Sheffield firms. I can recall my own father coming home dirty & tired. No showers at work in those days.

Lots of forum members fathers will have been steelworkers in Sheffield firms. I can recall my own father coming home dirty & tired. No showers at work in those days.

yep very true .i remember talking my dad pack up down to firth brown rolling mill ..he had to work a double em 16 hrs in that heat i dont know how he did it ................

yep very true .i remember talking my dad pack up down to firth brown rolling mill ..he had to work a double em 16 hrs in that heat i dont know how he did it ................

Yes, no Health & Safety in those days !

Yes, no Health & Safety in those days !

nope non at all ..they used to give him beer tickets he used to in the alexandra across the road..

I have vague memories of my dad working short time (3 or 4 days a week) in the early 60's and me mam having to take on a second job. It was hard for me dad to be bringing home less money and being stuck at home whilst mam had to go out to work.

Yes, no Health & Safety in those days !

too true.

my dad worked as a roller at firth brown norfolk bar mill and as the steel bars were being rolled they gave off fumes,especially the special steels.

their idea of h&s was to dip a sweat towel in a bucket of water and put it in their mouth till they had finished.

Have a look at this.Hell! But I’d go back tomorrow

This DVD contains a record of the lives of steelworkers of Sheffield and Rotherham , told in their own words to a team of volunteer interviewers between 1999 and 2001. It was made to capture a small part of their histories and of the industry that made Sheffield , before their voices are lost. It is the principal product of a project conceived as a fitting way for Sheffield ’s ‘No.2’ Branch of the Workers’ Educational Association to mark the millennium. By the time the year 2000 came it was almost too late to record these stories and sadly two of our interviewees died before the project was completed. This archive is dedicated to them.

How to use the archive

The archive consists of recordings from 29 interviews. Each one was broken down into short sections and indexed. This means that the recordings can either be browsed, interview by interview, or you can search for all the references made by interviewees to specific subjects. For example, you can hear Joan Kirby’s entire interview, or you can pick out and listen to the sections in which workers from minority ethnic backgrounds speak about their relationships with white colleagues and managers.

Background to the project

Other histories of the Don Valley steel industry exist. This project complements these by giving the workers’ side of the story - their stories as real people, inside and outside the works, not just as ‘the labour force’. The interviewees talk about what it was like in the mills and factories – the sense of community, the hazards, the politics, the conflicts – and about the impact of these jobs on their family lives.

Some of them worked in the steel mills themselves, while others were employed in the many supporting industries. Here are people from the rolling mills, crane drivers, fettlers and one of the very few surviving pattern makers, who painstakingly built the wooden models from which the engineers worked. Many of these men and women have skills which will disappear with them, since although steel is still produced in the Don Valley ; the workforce is a fraction of its previous size: the technology has changed and steel is made by computer-controlled machines.

We also tried, with some success, to talk to those who have largely been left out of other histories, which portray ‘the Don Valley steelworker’ as a white man. Most were, but women worked in the industry as well, both during the Second World War and in peacetime, and there were many steelworkers of Yemeni, Afro-Caribbean and other non-White backgrounds. While they shared much of the same environment, their experiences were often very different, facing racism and discrimination alongside the normal risks and hazards of their workplaces.

The project team

Jan Caborn, Leah Fleetwood, Peter Byrom, Robin Garside, Steve Connelly and Stuart Crosthwaite.

Acknowledgements

Our thanks go to the many people who made this project possible. Firstly of course, to our interviewees who contributed so much of their time and put their hearts into making this a living record of a disappearing past. We were given a huge amount of support and advice from people far more experienced in history projects than we are. Thanks in particular to Mike Spick of the Sheffield Library Service, Shirley Miller and Katherine Hamilton at Kelham Island Industrial Museum , Sheffield . We also an enormous debt to Pete Byrom who developed the electronic indexing system – the first of its kind as far as we know! Lastly we thank our funders: Awards for All, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and the Sheffield No. 2 Branch of the Workers’ Educational Association who gave us the idea and an organisational ‘home’ for the project.

The Workers’ Educational Association

The Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) is the country’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education. Democratic in its structure and its approach to education, it has had close links with the labour movement since it was established in 1903. Its principal aims are to stimulate and respond to the demand for liberal adult education, providing in particular for the needs of working class people and those who are socially, economically or educationally disadvantaged. The Sheffield No. 2 Branch is a proud inheritor of this tradition. Each year its volunteers and paid staff organise a programme of courses which emphasises making liberal education accessible in areas and in subjects neglected by other providers; social and political issues and supporting community organisations.

For more information on the WEA visit http://www.wea.org.uk, or contact

Workers’ Educational Association

Yorkshire and Humber Region

Regional Office

6 Woodhouse Square

Leeds

LS3 1AD

tel: 0113 245 3304

email: yorkshumber@wea.org.uk