Any memories of Crookesmoor School?

[Dexy27 10]

No ths infants school at the top I live near it.

[Alan Else 10]

I was in the same class as Roger Taylor. What was your brother's name? John1941

My brother was in Roger Taylor's class, Roger was our gang leader in stone cobbing wars against the Hoylands gang.

I went to Crookesmoor from 1948 to 1950.

[goneforeign 10]

Just came across this, I sent it to an article in the Star some years ago that was about 'Amigo', a B17 that crashed in Endcliff park, the last paragraph relates to something in the article.

One summer afternoon about 5 o’clock I was out playing with my friend John Webster when a B17 with only two of it’s four engines working flew over very low, it was badly shot up, trailing smoke and in obvious trouble. When we saw it we were at the corner of Barber Rd and Crooksmoor Rd right outside the church, the plane had come from the direction of Upperthorpe and it flew directly overhead the length of Crooksmoor Rd. When it disappeared from our view it was approx over Broomhill, about a mile away. It flew from the north east towards the south west. We knew immediately where it was heading: Endcliff Park! This was a park about 1 1/2 miles away that lay along the bottom of a valley in a heavily residential area: a river ran through the length of park, on one side of the river were football and cricket areas and on the other a heavily wooded steep bank.

We jumped on a bus that was heading directly towards the park and within a few minutes we were there. We entered the park at the Hunter's Bar entrance and immediately saw that the plane had crashed into the trees on the hillside and broken up over a very large area, there were trees on fire and already a police and army cordon stretched along the river bank to prevent public access. In a glance we knew how to get to the wreckage: there was a row of houses along the top of the ridge whose back gardens looked down on the burning trees. We quickly ran out of the park and up Brocco Bank to the street where those houses were, [i think it was Endciffe Glen Rd] We ran through their gardens and onto the wooded hillside. One detail that I must comment on is that the tail structure was not at the top of the hill, that's where we entered from nor did we hear any bullets exploding. As we neared the wreckage we saw that we not alone, we recognised several kids from the Harcourt Rd. gang, a street very close to where we lived, and they were already flitting from behind the trees and gathering souvenirs: down at the bottom of the hillside we could see a crowd with the police and soldiers holding them back. Collecting bomb and anti-aircraft shrapnel after air-raids was a normal procedure for all kids back then, so we picked up pieces of debris from the wreckage and knew it was time to leave when we saw fire engines pulling up below and firemen heading up towards the burning trees. As we scrambled back up the hill with our booty we passed the Harcourt Rd. gang, two of them were struggling to carry a pair of 50 cal. machine guns that must have weighed a ton! Next day we saw them again and they invited us to their house to see the guns, we were extremely envious, we’d never found anything like that!

 

Having spent several years in the RAF in a flying capacity I can't imagine 'three terrific spins' or 'rolled over three times': the plane was so low when it passed overhead when we first saw it, it was probably not more than 2 -300 feet above us. Any sort of maneuver like a roll or a spin would cause it to lose altitude before there was any possibility of rolling over and it didn't have any altitude to lose. And I find it difficult to believe that it had been 'flying around the Ecclesall area for some time', I believe that it travelled in a straight line from the time that we saw it 'til it crashed and that the pilot possibly was trying to reach the open grass area. The idea that he was 'circling around Ecclesall' is nonsense, from whatever minimal altitude he had he could have seen the open country around Ringinglow Rd and I'm sure he was hoping that he could make it that far. He came in a direct line from Doncaster and Rotherham, why he didn't choose to put it down in the open country out there we'll never know.

 

I recommend 'Bomber' by Len Deighton and also 'Inferno' by Keith Lowe, both books deal with B17's during WW2.

 

---------- Post added 25-12-2015 at 07:58 ----------

 

Here's another.

There were many events interesting to a kid, like one night I awoke at about 2 am and came downstairs, probably to go to the outside toilet, I heard a weird noise, like an aircraft with a 2 stroke motorbike engine, and then suddenly this thing with a flame shooting out behind it went overhead very low: the next day the paper said that the farthest north sighted V1 had passed over Sheffield and had crashed into farmland, normally they didn’t have the range to target cities as far north as Sheffield, I just happened to see the only one they fired at us! And then 30 odd years later I made a TV documentary about 'em.

 

---------- Post added 26-12-2015 at 09:48 ----------

 

Christmas morning I was reading a book and two words jumped out at me, two words that I hadn't heard together since my childhood, the two words were 'slag heap'. Growing up in and around Sheffield in the 1940's I was quite familiar with slag heaps, they were quite common particularly around coal mines and industrial sites; conical piles that looked like the Pyramids.

I know I've made reference to slag re. the 'tip' adjacent to Crooksmoor rd school but I'd never put the two words together, now the dam wall at the top of the 'tip' makes sense. Reading this prompted me to google 'slag heaps' and the results were quite amazing, they exist all over the world wherever the industrial revolution took root.

I clicked on google's images and was amazed at the photos and their descriptions; 600ft high is/was not uncommon and in some places they have multiple 600 footers side by side! I've speculated that the dam wall and the tip were created from industrial slag and this reinforces that thought. The word 'tip' also pops up frequently, many slag heaps were referred to as tips. See my comments at the Sheffield Forum dated 07-12-2015 for my initial musings on this subject.

 

---------- Post added 26-12-2015 at 09:50 ----------

 

Christmas morning I was reading a book and two words jumped out at me, two words that I hadn't heard together since my childhood, the two words were 'slag heap'. Growing up in and around Sheffield in the 1940's I was quite familiar with slag heaps, they were quite common particularly around coal mines and industrial sites; conical piles that looked like the Pyramids.

I know I've made reference to slag re. the 'tip' adjacent to Crooksmoor rd school but I'd never put the two words together, now the dam wall at the top of the 'tip' makes sense. Reading this prompted me to google 'slag heaps' and the results were quite amazing, they exist all over the world wherever the industrial revolution took root.

I clicked on google's images and was amazed at the photos and their descriptions; 600ft high is/was not uncommon and in some places they have multiple 600 footers side by side! I've speculated that the dam wall and the tip were created from industrial slag and this reinforces that thought. The word 'tip' also pops up frequently, many slag heaps were referred to as tips. See my comments at the Sheffield Forum dated 07-12-2015 for my initial musings on this subject.

[John1941 10]

The site of the crashed aircraft, in Endcliffe Park, is still there and usually has flowers there. I don't know who looks after it. Maybe someone who saw the plane go down, although there won't be a lot of them left

[waymel 1 10]

Hi does any one remember George Mellor started around 1946 till he was 15.

[Alan Else 10]

No ths infants school at the top I live near it.

The infants school in 1948 was in Oxford St below Tay St.

The junior school in 1950 was in Crookesmoor Rd still below Tay St.

I left in 1950 when we moved to Walkley where I went to Burgoyne Rd School until I left in 1958 to start work on my 15th birthday.

[goneforeign 10]

I was just rooting through some of my files and I came across these, thought they might be interesting to Sheffielders.

 

It used to be called ‘mischief’, today it would be called juvenile delinquency and you’d probably wind up in the nick for some of the things that we did. Another time we were right at the Walkley terminus where the city ends and the moorland begins: it was right across the road from the library. Where we were playing, it was a large flat open area but about 100 yards away there was a vertical cliff dropping down into Rivelin valley. Some workmen had been laying cable there, heavy stuff about 1” thick, they’d left a huge drum of it about 6ft in diameter and sitting upright. Of course two mischievous lads would want to give it a push to see if it would roll and of course it did, right over the cliff laying cable out behind it as it crashed down the hillside for what looked like about a quarter mile. We left in a hurry! I've often thought over the years of the poor buggers who were working there, they came in next day to discover that! And how do you haul a quarter mile of cable back up?

 

There were frequent events and programs designed to create public support for the war, posters everywhere urging us to ‘Dig for Victory’ or beware that ‘Careless talk costs lives’ but in addition there were displays set up on bomb sites around the city. One such, half way down the Moor had a real Lancaster bomber and a real tank! I don’t know what the adults thought but we thought it was wonderful, we’d only ever seen them in either books or films, we’d never seen the real thing up-close before. So we went, but unfortunately there was a catch, an admission cost that we couldn’t afford, one shilling and sixpence. The way it was set up was that you had to buy a one and sixpence saving stamp, put it in your savings book, and then they’d let you in to go inside the Lancaster.

We looked mournful, we stood at the wire fence and drooled and finally the RAF sergeant said “OK you two, I’ll let you in, I’ll even give you the saving stamp and the book, but you have to start buying saving stamps, OK?”. We willingly agreed. So he made out two books, one in each of our names and glued a one and six stamp into each, we were in! We spent the rest of the day ‘til they kicked us out going through the Lanc and talking to the ‘crew’. When we left we read the fine print in our savings books and discovered that we could cash them in at any time, suddenly we were rich, we’d never had one and six in cash ever before, there was no such thing as pocket money in those days, so we went to the post office and closed our accounts! One and six was more money than I’d ever seen but I don’t remember what I did with it, probably gave it to my Granny.

Edited January 1, 2016 by goneforeign
changes

[John1941 10]

I've just posted 4 photos on friendsunited (link below)

class photo 1951 J4 (I think) teacher is Mr. Wild

names of students in 1951 photo

class photo J4 & J3A 1952 - teacher Mr. Gill

senior football team 1955

 

http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/crookesmoor-primary-school/b/6e79fe81-f0ab-4544-a9b8-fd7a71c64e64?type=All

[Musicmaster 10]

I went to Crooksmoor School 1974 to 1977. It looks so much smaller now

[Hurdles 0]

I live at the Prince of Wales Pub on St Philips Road attend the Church and was in the Cubs l remember the Scrap yard with a lot of Army vehicles which we played in

l also remember the Pea n Pea shop and the Funeral Directors opposite the old cemetery 

There was three lads lives there and l think two brothers were twins

l also went to Crookmoor Boys where there was a boy boxer Victor Hargreaves l think his name was

Does anyone remember these time

[jaffa1 10]

7 hours ago, Hurdles said:

I live at the Prince of Wales Pub on St Philips Road attend the Church and was in the Cubs l remember the Scrap yard with a lot of Army vehicles which we played in

l also remember the Pea n Pea shop and the Funeral Directors opposite the old cemetery 

There was three lads lives there and l think two brothers were twins

l also went to Crookmoor Boys where there was a boy boxer Victor Hargreaves l think his name was

Does anyone remember these time

The tyre stock we use to call it where all the ex army jeeps and large search lights were stored,. What a great adventure playground  that was not to mention all the broken glass but we loved it.

I wonder if you are thinking of Tomlinsons the funeral directors  in Bedford Street that was a couple of streets away from St Philips church and the grave yard.

[pete10uk 10]

On 19/08/2010 at 19:50, bluevan said:

I went to crookesmoor, Mr Cole was the headmaster thenMr mulherney or something, he had a funny eye, Mr alright, he was brilliant!, Horrid old dinner woman mrs bramall, Does anyone remember Ryan palmer? he got killed on the dual carriage way and they planted a tree in the school gardens for him, Mr perkins aswell, or picky nose perkins, It was always a cold school with concrete steps, Both me and my sister went there

Yes I remember Ryan, I was in his class at the time he died. 

 

Most of the the teachers names ring a bell but to throw another one in the ring was Miss Jackson, a great teacher!