Cravens, Staniforth Road?

[beezerboy]

On 26/02/2015 at 14:54, steviered said:

My Great Grandfather Walter Pearce was a Master Coachpainter at Craven and worked on the royal train for the King of Siam.The story goes that while the train was over there it got damaged somehow, and the King paid for a gang of men To go over to repair it.

He suffered with Parkinson's disease in later life, but they used to say put a paintbrush or a pint of beer in his hand and he was steady as a rock.

 

My Frather Walt Redfern worked there in the 50s and 60s too.

 

During the Blitz they dropped a land mine on Cravens but it didn't do as much damage as Maggie Thatcher did.

My dad was in the Home Guard in WW II, he said he fought all is Jerries in Bowden Homestead  Wood , Handsworth. I remember he said he and another guarded a hole in the ground at Cravens all night

Edited May 18, 2023 by beezerboy

[Jim Hardie]

7 hours ago, beezerboy said:

My dad was in the Home Guard in WW II, he said he fought all is Jerries in Bowden Homestead  Wood , Handsworth. I remember he said he and another guarded a hole in the ground at Cravens all night

My old man was in the Home Guard and spent a lot of time on the rifle range at Totley. Another advantage was that he was just given a driving licence and never had to take a test in his life. A cushy number compared to his elder brothers, one who fought in Burma and was captured by the Japs and the other in North Africa.

[Jeffrey Shaw]

Cravens also made bus bodies for SCT (on AEC Regent and Leyland Titan chassis, I think)

[Nigel Reading]

Hello everyone and greetings from Sydney Australia.
Our paternal grandfather Leonard Charles Reading was a Chief Draftsman at Cravens in the interwar and WWII era.
He's leaning jauntily on his plan drawers chest, top right on page 8 here (where I seem to be doing my best to emulate him):
 

He would have worked there from at least 1924 (when our dad was born in the kit home that his father built in Ecclesall), until just after WWII.
If anyone has any Cravens source material on him or his work (such as scanned Cravens books or brochures/handbooks), it would be great to know as he unfortunately passed before my brother and I were even born, apparently from pancreatic cancer - perhaps related to the asbestos used there before the dangers were known.
All we have is a few photos and a Lysander blueprint. So it's been wonderful to hear of the history here, of all the marvelous trains, trams and buses and then other military planes like the D-Day Horsa gliders, Lancaster & Lincoln bombers and legendary Spitfire parts they made, here and on https://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/.
A great anecdote dad would tell us, was that during Luftwaffe bombing raids, he at 16, would still nip out for fish & chips mid-raid, because the family had such faith in the accuracy of the Germans, as their attention was squarely focused on the industrial and rail precincts on the other side of the valley!
Is there any museum or remnant  of the factory or drawing office left on site or nearby that we could visit next time we're in the UK?
Thanks so much in advance, and all the very best to the good denizens of the Don!
Nigel and Peter Reading

[gaz 786]

Had a couple of mates work there ...well attended lol kev Penistone and Steve Turner believe they were fabricators ?

[Michael Proctor]

My recollections of Cravens are not as exciting as the other posts but here goes. Firstly the Whitby road school " houses" when I went there in the 1950s were Cravens, Hadfield, Hampton and Ellisons I was in Cravens. Secondly when I used to go for the family fish and chips to Lomas,s chip shop. The Cravens orders that were collected didn't queue they went straight to the the front . I suppose they had pre ordered but in fact they were mostly made up at the time making everyone else wait. It always seemed to take ages to get served so one day I went to the other less popular chip shop I got served really quickly but when I went back to my grandma's I hadn't got over the step when I was challenged with " you've been to Creegans ****** I was not the flavour of the month for a bit

[brooksy]

On 26/02/2015 at 19:54, steviered said:

My Great Grandfather Walter Pearce was a Master Coachpainter at Craven and worked on the royal train for the King of Siam.The story goes that while the train was over there it got damaged somehow, and the King paid for a gang of men To go over to repair it.

He suffered with Parkinson's disease in later life, but they used to say put a paintbrush or a pint of beer in his hand and he was steady as a rock.

 

My Frather Walt Redfern worked there in the 50s and 60s too.

 

During the Blitz they dropped a land mine on Cravens but it didn't do as much damage as Maggie Thatcher did.

i worked with a guy pete cooke who worked at cravens and told me this in 87.i worked with him doing sheet metal work.he lived on darnall main rd .