Sheffield Memories - Compiled By L.S.Dunone

[sauerkraut 10]

I might have just enough imagination to conjure up one such letter (at nothing like seriessix standard of course!) , but to manage a whole book-full and more is quite mind-bogglingly impressive!

 

Believe it or not I do remember - for real - a bagpipes-practiser in the botanical gardens. And in true British fashion he was studiously ignored by all.

[seriessix 10]

http://sheffieldwriters.ath.cx/SFStoryArchive/1163703822.doc

[seriessix 10]

Dear Sir,

I was walking past Heeley baths the other day during one of my aimless meanders through our fine city. As I cast my eyes over its crumbling Victorian exterior I was instantly reminded of my old friend Charles Moore.

 

Charlie was just one of my many friends that took a keen interest in nature. His knowledge of this subject was exhaustive; I would have to say that his best loved animal was the Blue Whale. To be honest he seemed to know more about these animals than they did themselves.

 

What has this all got to do with Heeley baths I hear you say. Well, as we all know during the spring months the Blue Whale likes to migrate between the south and north poles. So during this same time Charlie would emulate this whale’s behavior at the baths. He’d swim under water on his back up and down the length of the pool. At about the half way point he’d ascend to the surface and blow a great jet of water out through his nose – he’d then take in a large mouthful of water and sink back down and continue on his way. It was indeed a majestic sight, probably more so than seeing the real thing from a sanitized viewing platform on a boat full of imbecilic tourists who are only interested in filling their photo albums with inane amateurish shots of gormless friends and relatives standing in front of whatever they pass by on their holidays.

 

Thanks,

 

Ken Unsworth.

[seriessix 10]

Unexpected Café Wife Encounter

 

Sir,

Some folk just don’t know they were born. Driving around in their flashy cars, with white teeth playing their radios at full blast at all times of the day. Look at the price of plimsolls! I could buy a house back in Dundee with the money people spend on their kids. It’s all flavored crisps, fizzy pop and mindless comics for kids these days.

 

When I was lad growing up in Scotland my mother used to cook a vat of porridge every Sunday, when it was cooked she’d pour it into the top drawer of the dresser and leave it to cool off. Every morning we’d cut out a chunk for our breakfast and a chunk for our lunch. I couldn’t believe it when I finally moved down to the city of Steel, it seemed like everyone was a millionaire. As a bonus at work we’d be given luncheon vouchers which I saved up for six months as I planned to ask my land lady’s daughter out for a posh dinner in the town. The relentless voices in my head still goaded me back then.

 

I finally plucked up the courage and to my surprise she accepted. Anyway, the evening seemed to be going well until I tried to pay with my wad of vouchers, they flatly refused them. I had to leave my companion at the restaurant and run all the way home and back to get my rent money. Needless to say that was the last time we went out together, that night the sky was as black as a Stormy Petrel’s egg. It rained for two weeks non stop and no one can see the tears when you’re crying in the rain.

 

After that incident I couldn’t afford the rent so I had to live in the outside toilet for a week but at least I had my vouchers. I ate at a different café everyday and it was at one of these fine establishments, over an egg butty, that I met the woman who would later become my first wife. So as you can see lightning can strike in more than one area on any given occasion and like life can manifest itself in many amorphous shapes and colours.

 

Richard Mothers.

[seriessix 10]

 

It’s like reading the review of a mental asylum garden fete, written by a bemused, whimsical, courteous Englishman whose tolerance of eccentricity knows no bounds.

 

 

I'd buy you pint if you could post the above quote or whatever you see fit on the review's list here.

 

http://www.lulu.com/content/469776

[buck 11]

Well done, seriessix, I enjoyed it immensely

[seriessix 10]

Terrance-Anne

 

Dear Sir,

Recently I was eating a loaf of bread that I had brought from the local supermarket and let me tell you it tasted terrible. I can’t believe the rubbish they pass off for food these days! Anyway, as I gazed at the loaf in its plastic packaging I was transported back to my youth, when I lived on the edge of the city near a place called Attercliffe.

 

Back then there was a windmill near our house that was run by farmer Ralph Dickens. He was a lovely kind fellow who once made a snooker table for the village out of an old dining table, six socks, a worn out truck tyre and an old coat that he was issued with whilst in the army. This shy man also employed the village hermaphrodite, Terrance Anderson (who was known as Terry-Ann to her mother and just plain Terry to his father).

 

Well one day, just before a terrible storm, some of the local children tied Terry to one of the sails of the windmill, children can be so cruel. She spun round and round for hours before farmer Ralph Dickens lassoed her to safety.

The funny thing was though that nine months later she gave birth to a baby, the excitement on the windmill made Terrance impregnate herself. Mother and baby moved into an out house on farmer Ralph’s farm, to my knowledge they still live happily there today.

 

Mrs Goddey Coats.

 

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o172/seriessix/windmill3.jpg

[shoeshine 10]

 

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o172/seriessix/windmill3.jpg

 

I can picture Terrance-Anne on there now, thanks to the link!

 

Can I open my eyes now, please?

[seriessix 10]

Double Walking

 

Sir,

The other day I was reading yet another article in the paper concerning the many advantages of getting up early in the morning and was soon fuming with anger, this subject has been done to death by the papers recently. Have they got nothing else to write about I thought to myself, so I decided to write a story of own to the paper concerning an old school friend of mine called Allan Hoyle.

 

Allan was maybe the kindest, gentlest person I have ever laid eyes on, he walked silently and when he spoke it sounded like a choir of angels. Allan would also like to make foreign visitors to Sheffield feel welcome by feigning interest in their home country. He would ask to learn some basic’s of their mother tongue, simple words like hello and thank you. He’d smilingly repeat back these words in pigeon fashion with no intention of remembering them.

 

In addition to these qualities Allan also invented a fitness regime that he called Double Walking, this regime was based around personal convenience. Double Walking involved going about your daily life but at the same time flailing your arms vigorously back and forth and quickly flapping your legs together (a bit like the knocking of knees). The effect was to combine exercise with normal day to day chores and thus burn twice the amount of calories. Whist Double Walking Allan appeared, to the uninitiated, as if he was experiencing some kind of seizure. But the really amazing thing was the damp patch that formed on the back of his trousers after a heavy session. As he always wore the same trousers these recurring wet areas would dry and leave fascinating marks that rather resembled the rings on a tree stump.

 

After Allan died his trousers were donated to the city Museum, where their heavily patterned behind was put on display for all to enjoy. In those trousers Allan and Double Walking will live on forever.

 

Thanks,

 

 

Cyril Edwards.

[Mantaspook 14]

Sir,

 

These delightful reminiscences remind me of the brief time I owned a copy of “Sheffield Memories” by Mr Dunone, it lasted approximately fourteen minutes and I can remember it like it was yesterday, for that was when my copy arrived through the post.

 

I had just returned from taking my ungrateful children to school, on the journey my young daughter remarked that she had acquired tickets to the school nativity play and my presence would be mandatory this year as she had calculated that the coincidental funerals of all five of my grandparents that I had been using as an excuse since 2001 no longer stood up to scrutiny.

 

Upon my return I sat down with my usual brew and a warm slice of wholemeal toast, the aroma of which brings my rottewiler from wherever she is hiding to a point approximately 8 inches away from my face where she growls in an endearingly intimidating manner until I feed her the crusts.

 

At this point the postman arrived; he’s a cheery sort of chap that likes nothing better than inserting important correspondence straight into the jaws of an excitable canine whilst protected by a two inch thick slab of Upvc. Sometimes he playfully holds on to the mail whilst the dog does an impression of a cross cut shredder and at other times he simply pushes it through the door and saunters away whistling ‘Colonel Bogey’

 

Thanks to the laminated plywood packaging the book survived the initial assault but I then made the error of leaving the book on the dining room table where it was discovered by a visiting mother in law. After laughing her socks off at the ‘Frozen Eels in the river Don’ story she then asked to borrow the book and a length of copper pipe, making her escape whilst I was distracted by a dwarf that had come to read the gas meter.

[seriessix 10]

Sir,

 

These delightful reminiscences remind me of the brief time I owned a copy of “Sheffield Memories” by Mr Dunone, it lasted approximately fourteen minutes and I can remember it like it was yesterday, for that was when my copy arrived through the post.

 

I had just returned from taking my ungrateful children to school, on the journey my young daughter remarked that she had acquired tickets to the school nativity play and my presence would be mandatory this year as she had calculated that the coincidental funerals of all five of my grandparents that I had been using as an excuse since 2001 no longer stood up to scrutiny.

 

Upon my return I sat down with my usual brew and a warm slice of wholemeal toast, the aroma of which brings my rottewiler from wherever she is hiding to a point approximately 8 inches away from my face where she growls in an endearingly intimidating manner until I feed her the crusts.

 

At this point the postman arrived; he’s a cheery sort of chap that likes nothing better than inserting important correspondence straight into the jaws of an excitable canine whilst protected by a two inch thick slab of Upvc. Sometimes he playfully holds on to the mail whilst the dog does an impression of a cross cut shredder and at other times he simply pushes it through the door and saunters away whistling ‘Colonel Bogey’

 

Thanks to the laminated plywood packaging the book survived the initial assault but I then made the error of leaving the book on the dining room table where it was discovered by a visiting mother in law. After laughing her socks off at the ‘Frozen Eels in the river Don’ story she then asked to borrow the book and a length of copper pipe, making her escape whilst I was distracted by a dwarf that had come to read the gas meter.

 

 

Damn, I trust the said mother in law will return it?

[Mantaspook 14]

I’m still waiting for the promised dowry for marrying her daughter in 1990.

 

Let’s say its unlikely.