Sheffield in the 70s

[le-joker]

Going to see the Bitter Suite 3 times a week.

[mickward1958]

My ex-wife bought a duff washing machine from Wigfalls and after weeks of argujuing wkith the branch, she cursed themand said that she hoped that they went bust. A few days later they burned down!!!!

[Ridgewalk]

I've got great memories of the Crazy Daisy. I used to go in mid 1970s but usually Saturday afternoons. Cracking atmosphere really buzzy. Used to do a karate session in the City Hall ballroom and then into the Daisy. Wasn't there something of a Teddy boys revival during this period ?

[Ridgewalk]

Hope, Badger, Hemsley, Flynn, Colquhoun, Hockey, Reece, Salmons, Woodward, Dearden, Currie, Scullion, Tudor, Powell, Speight

[rarmin4]

Hope, Badger, Hemsley, Flynn, Colquhoun, Hockey, Reece, Salmons, Woodward, Dearden, Currie, Scullion, Tudor, Powell, Speight

BEL

ahhhh, SUFC v CARDIFF-5-0, THEN SUFC v WATFORD 3-1 TO WIN PROMOTION, MY FIRST 2 GAMES AS A BLADE..

[iKitty]

I loved the Crazy Daisy, we used to go there on a Wednesday night and dance to Roxy Music and David Bowie. Later on they had a punk night and we used to pogo away to The Clash, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Damned, the Buzzcocks, the Vibrators, Wire, X-Ray Spex, The Undertones...

 

I remember the Penthouse too, where your feet used to stick to the carpet – it was a heavy metal place, but we started going when they started a punk night on a Monday. Your feet still stuck to the carpet!! Then The Limit opened, and we went there to see The Human League, ClockDVA, and many other Sheffield bands.

 

We used to drink in the Raven (a proper pub), and the Beehive on West Street. There was also the Red Deer just off West St, a tiny two-room place with a pianist in the miniscule back room. We used to go in there for last orders where we were a bit well-oiled, and join in with all the old-timers who were in there singing the old songs. If there were more than a couple of us we'd be squashed in the doorway, because the room was so tiny it only accommodated about 10 people in all!

 

As kids we'd spent many happy hours freezing in Millhouses Lido, and loved the orange Jubblies we bought off the Stop Me & Buy One man who went round the streets where we lived (Lansdowne Road, Club Garden Road – near Cemetery Road). We used to play on the bombed sites, looking for 'treasures' in the rubble of the demolished houses among the rosebay willowherbs. 45 years, 13 house moves, and a relocation to Nottingham later I've still got an old blue glass bottle that I found there when I was seven!

 

School meals in the 1970s were 12p, and you could go anywhere (well, anywhere that we'd have thought of going) on the bus for 2p.

 

I left school in 1976, and the day our exams finished my friend and I went to Ladybower dam on the 72 bus and wrote our names in the mud on the walls of the houses. There were lots of names there from the last time the houses had been accessible, 1959. I hurt my shoulder carrying a huge container of water from the stand pipe on our estate, and I remember the doctor giving me painkillers that were so heavy duty they made me high.

 

Then there were the power cuts a few years before. The first time we had one I was in the bath, and our bathroom had no windows, just an extractor fan. It was 100% dark, and I don't think I'd ever been anywhere that dark before. I had a panic attack because it was so claustrophobic, and I remember desperately feeling my way across to the sitting room where the rest of the family was. My Mum had lit candles, and I was a teenage girl standing there stark naked and dripping in front of everyone, I've never been so embarrassed!

 

I started work in 1976 as an office junior at Effingham Steel Works in Attercliffe. The 69 bus ran every three minutes, so there was never an excuse for being late. There were still three shifts working at all the steelworks, on Sheffield Shift: mornings (6am - 2pm), afters (2pm - 10pm) and nights (10pm - 6am). You could feel the heat from the furnaces through the bus windows as you went past some of the works, and walking home from some party in Rotherham at 2:30am was a fabulous experience. You could see into the open shops, and there were roaring furnaces, sparks flying, and liquid steel flowing. The whole night sky was lit up in places, I'll never forget it. I'll never see anything like that again, I'm sure.

[cuttsie]

Kitty thats brilliant ,after that i can hear Daniel Doncasters Hammer banging away ,i lived a good mile up the hill from them at Walkley and when it was the shutdown you could not sleep because of the quiet

[nice-nurse]

Great thread. Sound so familiar!!!! Seems like yesterday....... if only.

[nobbalovski]

Hi, Mikey, I am from Germany and have spent hours with research about the black swan and the performers they had in the 70ies. Can you support me? I need descriptions and pictures of Glen Turner, who was born in sheffield at 1953. He has been a quite well known guitar player and singer in the late 60ies and early 70ies and certainly still is. He went to London and became a part of the musicians that performed the legendary rock opery Tommy. Glen is now preparing a solo concert with the headline "my life - my music" and I was asked to give him a stage background. Unfortunately the early days in sheffield give me a headache because Glen has no material in his private archieve. If there is any support from this forum I will express many thanks in advance.

 

Hi Saxobine

 

I am Glens brother i can let you have all his details if required,yes he did play in Tommy and was part of several groups including Mott the Hoople for a short spell,mickeys monkeys,big buisness,paper sun,backed Jimmy james a while i believe.chris stainton(Joe cockers keyboards player) made an album with him in a band called Tunrda.He s been playing with Pete Hacock recently(ex climax blues band )if you wiki pete you can see glen playing with him in a band called true blues.Hope this helps a little.

[911wasalie]

I was demobbed from the army in 1973 after 25 years service. I was an apprentice painter and decorator in 1943 working for Wilfred Axe of Nether edge. During the winter there was no work except in the steel works or the trams.