Memories of steelworkers

[heathl4 10]

Thankyou so much to everyone that has replied, look forward to hearing more so please keep them coming. I will post up the work as it progresses and thankyou again, what a wonderful forum. My admiration to all those who worked in these industries..must confess two days forging and i have muscles aching i didnt know i had! Thankyou again and please continue to send in replies. Lucianne.

[santho_naray 10]

Nice to see this thread...being new to Sheffield and heard lot about its Steel History, would like to see any old Steel Factory...is there any option...or any Great Museum in and around sheffield?

[Kidorry 189]

Nice to see this thread...being new to Sheffield and heard lot about its Steel History, would like to see any old Steel Factory...is there any option...or any Great Museum in and around sheffield?

There is Kelham Island industrial museum on Alma St. near the city centre.

[patrick38 10]

Nice to see this thread...being new to Sheffield and heard lot about its Steel History, would like to see any old Steel Factory...is there any option...or any Great Museum in and around sheffield?

 

magna at templebrough

[santho_naray 10]

Thanks Kidorry and Patrick for the quick reply...Any Factory Visits you know?

[patrick38 10]

magna is a old steel factory .not sure boute factory visits try phoning forgemasters up see if they will let you have a look round

[steelman79 10]

magna is a old steel factory .not sure boute factory visits try phoning forgemasters up see if they will let you have a look round

 

Dont think forgemasters allow visits round their melting shop but maybe machine shops?

When i worked on c furnace in stocksbridge melting shop there was a walkway all around the melting shop,one afternoon shift i was putting some iron ore in the furnace with the charger and it blew up (damp) just as a party of visitors were on the walkway, cue everybody diving onto walkway floor

[wizzlad 10]

i worked in no 2 melting shop,for 36 years,for welleman bros,then in the brickies,hard ,hot ,dusty,got your work done in them days the went 2 the pub

[zepstox 10]

2nd time I've written this as Sheffield Forum timed me out, only went for a coffee, thanks guys....not!

I knew I should have used notepad....

Anyway here goes again:

 

I worked at BSC Tinsley Park Bar Mill and there was a visit going on with the Lord Mayor and his usual entourage (I can smell the fresh paint now), anyway, as they were passing the 14" mill, a huge red hot cobble developed and looped up over the catwalk a few metres behind where they had been watching. It slid back down over the handrails on it's own weight and onto the shop floor below but if it had happened just 10 seconds earlier the Lord Mayor and a few others could have been decapitated.

 

One morning, one of the Yemeni cranedrivers had had a big bust up with his brother and was in a bad mood, as he was loading a Parker's lorry he dropped a lift and narrowly missed breaking the lorry driver's legs. The lorry driver was a mate of mine, big Wednesdayite, who will remain unnamed, was incandescent with rage so he flew up the steps to confront the crane driver, as he reached the top the Yemeni pulled a knife on him. It didn't faze him as he was one of the hardmen off Manor but it fizzled out into a slanging match. Happy days.

 

We all got on fine with the Pakistanis and Yemenis, we used to have 5 day "test" matches in the summer in the scrapyard at snaptime. The scoreboard was an ingot, the stumps was a 45gallon oil drum and after one over the ball blended in with the background so we wore safety specs and cardboard pads. We chalked up Pakis v Rest of World 'cos Radiac Roy from the Carribean played for the non Pakis. Thing is, the Pakistanis used to chalk up the scoreboard, as well, it was they who wrote Pakis, (God forbid with today's political correctness garbage....) there was never a hint of malice or racism, we were all good mates, really good mates, until many years later, one who came to work up at Rotherham Works in his taxi, during the 1st Gulf War put a photo of Saddam Hussein in his cab window and had it pretty well smashed up.

 

I'm sure almost everyone who worked in the steelworks has a few stories to tell. It became part of you. I did 34 years, got made redundo last July, haven't missed it one bit, especially not the hypocrites who masqueraded as managers after the millenium and after Tata took over. There won't be many stories involving great management achievements, they were very thin on the ground.

[zepstox 10]

Dont think forgemasters allow visits round their melting shop but maybe machine shops?

When i worked on c furnace in stocksbridge melting shop there was a walkway all around the melting shop,one afternoon shift i was putting some iron ore in the furnace with the charger and it blew up (damp) just as a party of visitors were on the walkway, cue everybody diving onto walkway floor

I was at Stocksbridge college once and the whole place shook when, well, we heard a live shell went in and blew the bezel off by all accounts. Maybe you can tell me more, and a few days later a few rounds of ammo went in, a mate of mine who was working in the offices said people were diving all over the place. I used to go under No2 down in the cellars to get the meter readings, it was a soundproof and protected room with double doors and an oxygen and water supply in case of a breakout or other incident. It linked via a tunnel which came out half way up the banking behind No2, I remember zillions of steps to climb and the higher you got the hotter it got.

[heathl4 10]

Thanks again to everyone who has been posting replies, i have done a lot of research on the steel industry and it was part of my dissertation. But what i am really interested in is how you felt in the foundrys, the personnal side of steel working that books and research dont elaborate on. I hope words that may give an incite to those that will never experience the scale of this work and the heat etc. Thankyou for replies but feel free to get poetic or profound, i would love the words to be as true to you as possible, so write in your own voice..ie slang/accent. Steelman 79 im working on your words already, the first post you put..about it being in the blood..is being created in forged steel. Will post some pics next week.

[pattricia 574]

All very interesting stuff is this.