Eric Thurtle lived in Sheffield

[Tinkerbell65]

Hi

Please send me your email address so i can send the photos.

Hope your both well.

Regards

Tinkerbell65

[smf333]

Hey Tinkerbelle!

 

I got your PM but it won't let me reply because I have'nt had five posts aparently!?

 

Anyway, in answer to your question; no we have'nt found out anything else about 119 Rock St. I don't know if I told you about the old lady that lived up on Fox St (just below 119) who aparently lived in the same house all her life and was still living there as of the last time we spoke. ? ? ? ?

 

Well she's blind and partially deaf so, in order to not scare her by just turning up to ask questions, we decided to send her a letter (via her son who looks after her) to see if it was possible for us to visit.

Unfortunately we never got a reply from her so it was a dead end there.

 

I never have found the EXACT location of the Fox st shelter, and can only say that it was'nt one and the same as the shelter that was in 119's back garden.

 

As for the ariel photographs, that too was a dead end after phoning half the war ministry of defence archives. So i'm still left with a period photograph that was taken poss a week or two after the bombings that just cuts off 119 by a few meters!! GRRRRR!!!!!

 

Anyway, efforts are sporadic at the moment and to be honest I've not been into it for maybe a year or so, although I'm still keen to find as much out as possible. However, as more and more stuff becomes available on the net you never know what might turn up eventually.

 

Hope you're doing well, all the best. Jim.

[smf333]

Hi Valerie,

 

I've tried yet again to reply to your PM but it won't let me! Can you PM your email so I can reply to you?

 

all the best.

 

Jim.

[DUFFEMS]

This is a reference to the Burial in City Road Cemetery where there is a grave for all the people (including the Marples) who died during the blitz of December 1940:

Thurtle, John Henry (~, age 63).

Died at Fox St; Buried on December 22, 1940 in General Portion ground;

Grave Number Bricked Vault A, Section OO1 of City Road Cemetery, Sheffield.

 

This is an extract from http://www.sheffieldindexers.com

[Rag&Bone Man]

thank you for that i have found out where a lot of my ansestors are buried which is great still cannot seem to find my grandmother thought will keep trying .

[DUFFEMS]

thank you for that i have found out where a lot of my ansestors are buried which is great still cannot seem to find my grandmother thought will keep trying .

 

If you post the details of your grandmother on the ww.sheffieldindexers.com. site you may get the information.

Regards,

Duffems

[Siren]

That was fascinating! For the last two years we’ve not been able to find anything about our house other than the names of the people that once lived there. It’s good to finally meet someone who is a link to the past! This is the thing we have not been able to get our heads round though. From what we thought happened, Henry died at 119 Rock Street (where we’re pretty sure there was a shelter) but your aunt Linda and kids died at the fox Street shelter. Now the raid lasted from Dec 12th around 6pm, to 4am the following morning. So that may explain why there are two different dates for your relatives passing, as the two shelters may have been hit at different times before and after midnight. But, we couldn’t work out why Henry was listed as passing with the Neale’s at 119 and not with his daughter at the Fox Street shelter? Let me explain why we thought this.

From people I’ve talked to, there was a Main shelter on Fox Street, where? Don’t ask. I’ve been trying to find its exact location for two years and come up with nothing. The other shelter we suspected was in our garden. Anyway, someone on another site came up with this remarkable photo taken by a Spitfire a few days after the bombing and it showed a very distinctive bomb crater outside Piebank School & what may have been one at the Junction of Gray Street & Fox Street. So we assumed that for some reason Henry went with the Neal’s into the garden shelter at 119 and Linda & the kids who may have been out at the time headed for the Fox Street shelter down the road.

From what you’re saying it now sounds like there may have been only one shelter (Mr Bellinger said it was at the top of 117’s garden) the illusive Fox Street shelter, and then maybe the Neale’s and Henry were moved to 119 where they later died? But surely if the shelter took a direct hit everyone would have passed away at The Fox Street shelter and it would have been listed as such??!!

I’m more confused now then ever!

We need to talk to get our facts right I’m sure your family history has got to be better than our presumptions!

I’ve been passed 119 on several occasions since we started our investigations, and driven down Fox Street trying to get a hold of what went on that night but it’s all just out of reach. We’ve commented on several occasions how it seems unfair that all these people passed away on one night (people dying at no’ 95 & 159 also) in such tragic circumstances and no one seems to care or remember

Alas I don’t know who lives there now as we moved to the other side of the city in 1983. But my sister has often said we should give them a knock and ask if anything strange has happened to them as it did to us on many occasions.

 

All the best, smf.

It may have been me who sent the aerial picture, I still have it, of the bomb craters. What I have learned since is that the shelter on Fox St was probably of a type that was virtually useless if a bomb fell near it let alone hit it. It was constructed of bricks with a heavy concrete roof, until a few years ago one still existed in the playground of Pye Bank School.

 

The walls of brick were not reinforced and if a heavy bomb fell within yards of it the walls would be blown in and the heavy concrete roof would crush the occupants inside. It was a cheap shoddy job there are several incidents of this happening. However I think the shelter received a direct hit, I can remember from my childhood how the level of the "old gardens" suddenly dropped away where the shelter was (I believe). The house the Coopers lived in was later occupied by Polish refugees called Scott, one of the children was my age and I visited their house regularly. There was no sign of a shelter in the garden (it would have been an Anderson shelter I feel sure)and no sign of a a crater or shrapnel damage. If you went to the top of the garden the Bellingers lived on the immediate left.

 

Hope this helps if you want a copy of the picture let me know.

 

Dennis

[sheffsueme]

Hi

Thank you for that i do know most of it but the dates are important .Yes Grace was born in America but i dont know where she was buried here in Sheffield. I know about the Thurtle side it was easy to trace because i had some help from some one like your self who was very kind and shared their info with me, buts its more about his Downing side i'd like to know and if anyone really knew my dad .He told me some funny stories of when he was young and i'd love to find out more and if i have any Downing realatives here in Sheffield.Thank you again for your kind help any more would be great.

 

 

 

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My sister was friends with Pauline Thurtle in the 1960s, she married but i don't know her married name. Her family lived on or near Buchanan Road, S5

 

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