Book - Sheffield’s Shocking Past: The Twentieth Century

A BOOK has been released about shocking incidents from Sheffield’s past.


It is called Sheffield’s Shocking Past: The Twentieth Century, and was written by local historians Chris Hobbs and Matthew Bell.

It is the follow up to a similar tome by the pair which focused on the Victorian period.

Included are tales about a killer cat from Millhouses, death by scalding at Heeley Baths, and the city’s earliest motor accidents.

Chris, 58, of Crookes, said: “It’s a bit ghastly but there seems to be a real appetite for this kind of thing.”

Matthew, 50, of Heeley, added: “People are fascinated by a little historic death and disaster.”

Here The Diary presents some of the best - or should that be worst? - extracts...

Hillsborough crush, 1934:
The record attendance at Hillsborough was on February 17 1934 for Wednesday’s FA Cup tie against Manchester City. But tragedy struck when a fan was crushed to death in the Leppings Lane end.

The Manchester Guardian reported five of George Hill’s ribs were broken. It said: “The inquest jury said more crush-barriers ought to be erected at the ground. A mounted policeman who had several years experience said he had never seen a crowd behave in such a manner. Several people near the railings were screaming for assistance.”

The city’s first motor tragedy, 1907:

Three people died in Sheffield’s first motor accident on August 25, 1907.

The Manchester Guardian reported: “A terrible accident occurred in Manchester Road, near Sheffield. A motor charabanc, conveying a party organised by the proprietor of a Sheffield hotel, was returning from Derbyshire, and all went well until Moscar Top was reached. Here...one of the wheels caught a telegraph pole. The char-a-banc was swung around into a stone wall with a fearful impact and overturned.”

The dead were five-year-old William Ernest Harrison, the son of a stoker at Sheffield Corporation; Benjamin Handley, 33, a bricklayer of Boston Street; and Hugh Fearn, 37, a clerk of Abbeydale Road.

Death by Cat, 1904:
Domestic butler William Ranger, of Millhouses Lane, was 63 when, in March 1904, he was scratched on his arm by his Persian cat.

The Manchester Guardian reported: “A few days afterwards there was severe pain and swelling near the elbow, and a doctor was summoned. A month after the accident the doctor found the patient livid and struggling for breath. There was no improvement after that time and he died.”

The book, published by city firm ACM Retro on November 14, is available for pre-order from The Star.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/community/the-diary/the-diary-shocking-sheffield-1-5120272

Book - SHEFFIELD’S SHOCKING PAST: Forgotten Tales of Murder, Mishap and Gruesome Misdemeanour

Author and Heeley resident Matthew Bell and local historian Chris Hobbs have joined forces to write a book relating some of the darker episodes – in all their grisly detail – of Victorian Sheffield .


SHEFFIELD’S SHOCKING PAST: Forgotten Tales of Murder, Mishap and Gruesome Misdemeanour, published by ACM Retro, recalls a poverty-stricken world defined by tragedy, misfortune and murder.

Victorian justice was brutal and Sheffield had the dubious honour of being home to Thomas Williams, the first man to be hanged during Queen Victoria’s reign. But not all crimes were solved; the murder of Boden Lane’s ‘Bearded Lady’, for example, remains a mystery. Drink was behind many hideous tragedies – a bizarre ‘prank’ of pulling a pet cat across Attercliffe canal on the end of rope was in a bid to win beer! In this case the animal escaped and the owner drowned.

Three tales in Sheffield’s Shocking Past will resonate with the people of Heeley:

Two grotesque murders took place a fortnight apart in 1852. The first occurred in Cutler’s Wood, by the River Sheaf at Heeley Bottom – a child’s body was found with its head severed. Soon afterwards a travelling salesman was shot in the head near Midhill House, East Bank Road. The perpetrators of these terrible crimes were hanged at York and suffered the final ignominy of sharing a grave.

That same year, a four year old boy suffered an agonising death from burning at Ash Farm, behind the Ball Inn on Myrtle Road. The poor lad ran some distance towards home with his clothes on fire before collapsing.

In 1869, John Shortridge, a respected industrialist influential in the building of Wicker Arches and the introduction of horse-drawn trams from town to the Red Lion, Heeley, died in a carriage accident on Abbeydale Road. Shortridge’s grave is the one with the tall obelisk by the entrance to Heeley Parish Churchyard.

Sheffield’s Shocking Past, priced £12.95, is available from Waterstone’s, Sheffield Scene, Amazon and ACM Retro. For details, see www.acmretro.com and http://www.chrishobbs.com/.

From: http://heeleyonline.org/2012/06/18/sheffields-shocking-past-forgotten-tales-of-murder-mishap-and-gruesome-misdemeanour/

Book - No nostalgia for Penniless upbringing

Michael Glover and his sister Patricia Eales

HER picture as a little girl may be on the cover of a book reminiscing about Sheffield in the Fifties, but Patricia Eales feels in no way nostalgic about those days.

Headlong Into Pennilessness is Michael Glover’s account of growing up without a father in a poor two-bedroomed terraced house lacking a bathroom or an indoor lavatory.

He shared the tiny house in Fir Vale with five other relatives, one of those being his older sister, Patricia Eales,

The home always held a strange fascination for Michael, who defied the odds to win a scholarship to Cambridge University and went to become editor of Mirror Books, an award-winning poet and art critic for The Independent.

It’s a view not shared by Patricia who has lived in the Holymoorside area of Chesterfield since the early 1970s. “I couldn’t wait to leave that house. It was tiny, damp and horrible.”

The front cover of the book is a photo at Michael Glover’s christening. Patricia, who was just seven years old at the time, is the only smiling face on the picture which clearly displays the strain caused by their absent father.

She said: “Michael grew up never knowing his father. I didn’t meet him until I was four years old when war was over. He appeared in all his khaki army gear with a huge handlebar moustache; he was nearly black from years under the hot sun in Burma. My mother fainted.

“The man that came home in 1945 was very different from the one that left in 1939, according to my mother. Their marriage was one of the many casualties of the war.”

Patricia Eales, now 70, much prefers her semi in Derbyshire. “Wild horses wouldn’t drag me back to an existence that was ruled by the make-do-and-mend attitude of the time; nightly arguments about money and the freezing cold outside toilet!”

Headlong Into Pennilessness is published by www.acmretro.com and is available in bookshops at £9.95.

From: http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/no_nostalgia_for_penniless_upbringing_1_4135774

Book - Book describes life on breadline (Sheffield)

A RETIRED housewife has found herself the cover star of a new book which details her family’s austere existence in 1950s Sheffield.

Patricia Eales, aged 70, is featured on the front of her brother Michael Glover’s memoir Headlong Into Pennilessness, in which he writes about their early life in a terrace house in Fir Vale.

Patricia - just seven years old at the time - is pictured at Michael’s christening more than five decades ago.

Michael grew up without a father in a poor, two-bedroomed house on Coningsby Road, sharing the tiny house with five other relatives.

Despite his deprived upbringing he has fond memories of the house - but Patricia said she doesn’t share her brother’s view.

“I couldn’t wait to leave that house - it was tiny, damp and horrible,” she said.

“Wild horses wouldn’t drag me back to an existence that was ruled by the make-do-and-mend attitude of the time, nightly arguments about money and the freezing cold outside toilet.”

Patricia moved to a semi-detached house in Holymoorside, Chesterfield, in the early 1970s, where she still lives today.

Her brother went on to gain a degree at Cambridge University and worked as editor for publishing house Mirror Books, as well as an art critic for The Independent newspaper.

Patricia said Michael never knew his dad, and that she didn’t meet him until she was four years old after the Second World War.

“He appeared in all his khaki army gear with a huge handlebar moustache,” she said.

“He was nearly black from years under the hot sun in Burma. My mother fainted.

“The man that came home in 1945 was very different from the one that left in 1939, according to my mother.

“Their marriage was one of the many casualties of the war.”

Headlong Into Pennilessness is published by ACM Retro and available in The Star shop on York Street, Sheffield, priced £9.95. It is currently being serialised in The Star’s Retro supplement on Saturdays.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/lifestyle/book_describes_life_on_breadline_1_4118744

 

Book - The Ritz, Redgates and a Tarzan swing – with chips (Sheffield)

Steve Bush’s book, ‘Gee’or Ruwerin’, has topped the local best-sellers in Waterstones in Orchard Square. “I know it has been popular but I never expected this,” says the author, who describes his experiences of growing up in the Parson Cross area during the 1960s and used to live at 387 Wordsworth Avenue.

The book, unashamedly written in Sheffield dialect and featuring rare photos, covers everything from Saturday morning visits to the Ritz Cinema in Parson Cross to ‘wagging it’ from school and spending the afternoon in Redgates’ toy shop.

Steve is married and lives in Gleadless. He has two daughters and two grandchildren.

His book is available from The Star shop in York Street and Waterstones and is published by ACM Retro, priced £7.95.

‘Our field’, Wordsworth Avenue

Across from 387, Wordsworth Avenue, was a large open expanse where we played ‘tiggy’, ‘hiddy’ and a myriad of ball games. We flew kites, lobbed throwing arrows and it was where the Parson Cross Eagles and Devils held their enthralling Sunday afternoon speedway matches. We played around (and in) the stream and we got to know every single blade of grass on ‘our field’. During the long summer holidays, a four-a-side footie game would evolve into 12 or 13 a side by the time we were called in for tea, the tally of goals long since forgotten.

Ritz cinema, Parson Cross

The Ritz smelled of faux velvet and Butterkist. Each seat was covered in cigarette burns which you could feel as you clambered over them to get to the front. The programme was varied and exciting, the noise of 200 screaming kids ear-shattering, as Captain Marvel got the better of yet another baddie and the Three Stooges fell foul of their latest money-making plan. At half time we lined up for the yo yo competition and sucked lovingly on a rocket-shaped ice lolly. Zooom!!

Redgates toy shop

The highlight of any town trip with mum. There I could play Subbuteo, Johnny Seven and even have a bash at Escalado. I could sit cross-legged in a wigwam with a bow and arrow and talk heap big trouble for the cowboy. Action Man accessories and iron-filing drawing kits were in abundance and I would pore over them longingly, making mental shopping lists which would never be realised. And I got to choose my Chrissy pres – a Chad Valley cine projector, with Mickey Mouse and Pluto getting into their usual scrapes on board a paddle ship.

Grenoside village fete

Each spring the village green was adorned with bunting and flags. Locals and visitors gathered together around the rope-enclosed dancing mats and eagerly awaited the programme. There were brass bands, jangly-trousered morris men, a fancy dress pageant and, of course, country dancing, which was our showpiece. When our turn came, we skipped and hopped in time to the brass beat and swung our partners to and fro. The applause was generous and we each got a free ice cream at the end. Result!

Tarzan swing, bluebell woods, Creswick Lane

Once a year, one of the Sheldon family would climb fearlessly into the high branches of a great oak, shin out on to a sturdy limb and, after tying off one end, drop a thick rope down to six pairs of waiting hands. Then, one at a time, we ran up the bank clutching the rope and leapt out into thin air, legs swinging freely, and yodelling like Edgar’s orphaned hero, Tarzan. Exhilarating!

Chip shop, Margetson Crescent

No-one could be sure when the chippy would be open, timings being at best erratic. Word would go around, via a kind of osmosis, and slowly the shop would fill with hungry mouths, clutching tightly at their sixpences and shillings. The smell of battered fish, sizzling in fragrant boiling oil, wafted along Wordsworth, and as service began, lashings of vinegar were shaken over the wares until new odours mingled with the old. Newspaper wrapping and Dandelion and Burdock concluded the menu to unwavering satisfaction and lasting delight.

Mansell Youth Club

We sat casually around the dark disco, chatting confidently to girls and smoking Woodbines from the side of the mouth, to the funky rhythms of Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) and Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. The mirror ball spun frenetically and reflected its ultra violet light spots around the room. Relationships were born and, in many cases, died, as we dipped our toes into the murky waters of adulthood. Was adolescence ever more fun than this?

Air raid shelter, Fulmere Crescent

In a friend’s back garden, we burnt candles and drank beer from a Party Seven can. It was stuffy and smelly but it was an adult-free zone and we loved sitting among the discarded concrete bollards, childish cave drawings, and the rotting timbers – left behind from who knows when? There was no evidence of Blitz parties, just a few discarded Craven A packs and a broken Mackeson bottle. We didn’t need gas masks.

From: http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/the_ritz_redgates_and_a_tarzan_swing_with_chips_1_3438987