Can anyone tell me about the Grand Hotel?

[CHAIRBOY]

Great reminiscences Freda. I was only on the outside looking in but going to the school across the road, I spent hours waiting on the pavement in Balm Green for sporting autographs. You may well remember Pele and Brazilian team Santos staying there? Do you recall the wavy-haired guy, wearing a hard flat cap (uniform) who stood in a little kiosk in that forecourt organising parking, taxis and moving us away from the doors? I'd be talking 62ish time.

[Freda]

Sorry Chairboy - I only worked at The Grand 1956/7, 1960 I went to work in London - I don't remember the parking bit at all. But then I always had to enter and leave by the staff entrance in the bowels of the building :-( came out in Orchard St I think ( a narrow road running by the side of the Grand) and then into Leopold Street. You school kids used to wear a dark green uniform, didn't you? My older bruv used to go there - it was the Sheffield Tech.

[CHAIRBOY]

The narrow road was Orchard Lane and on the other side of the road were the Education Offices merged with the City Grammar School (green uniforms/red piping) and the Central Technical School (Oxbridge blue). That merged site took in Holly Street, the Bow Building and the main West Street entrance/Leopold Street and much of it is being demolished as we write, sadly!

[pockets]

Hi from pockets I used to work at the grand hotel in the 60/70 years i many autographs i have some old photos i took in thoses days:hihi:

[peterw]

Freda — you probably also saw Lon Chaney at the Grand, and another old music-hall name Wee Georgie Wood. They also stayed at the Grand while appearing at the Empire — as did Frankie Howerd, Boris Karloff and the singer Donald Peers who also had a radio show.

[Arfer Mo]

I can remember me sitting on the front seat of my dads taxi one sun; am in 1936 on leopold st and the signal came from the Grand for a taxi Ihad to bob down onthe floor we went to the main entrance then I heard aloud voice [ Iordered a taxi not a pill box] it was Teddy Johnson at that time a famous zylophone player about 24 st my dad said this is the widest door on the rank , he got in ok we took him to the Midland Station , on the way he spotted me onhis way out and threw me a sixpence a fortune for me in those days , he tipped dad a halfcrown 3 times the fare.

[Gordonb]

Did the Grand not occupy all of the site which went on to become "The Fountain Precinct"? Looking at another thread tonight someone has been asking about the Hallam Tower Hotel. There has always been a shortage of good hotels in Sheffield. I seem to think that at the time of the Grand there was only the Royal Victoria as an alternative. Then they built the Hallam Tower about the same time as the Grosvenor House and knocked the Grand down.

[Stevie Boo]

Hi Freda,

 

I read your diaries on the net and they were brilliant and they brought back alot of memories.

 

I was at the Grand Hotel in the early 1960's as a small child, so I missed you by a couple of years. My mother worked there and had to take me to work with her sometimes - remember the ladies hairdressers upstairs? I used to sit on the bottom of the wide staircase, which let to the rooms and the salon, and watch the world go by.

 

I also knew Johnny Spitzer and used to skip along the corridors singing 'Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Spitzer' cos as a child I thought it was such a funny name to say. As you know, he lived at the Grand, and my mother and me used to go to his 'suite' and have tea with him - and looking back now, what was going on there?! I wonder what happened to him and where he went after the Grand closed down.

 

Thanks for sharing your diaries Freda, certain chapters where very enlightening!

[CHAIRBOY]

Stevie Boo, In fairness to myself, Chairboy, I raised the topic of John Spitzer and the revolving doors on Page 2 of the thread!

Gordon b, you are correct that the Grand Hotel occupied the whole of what became known as the Fountain Precinct and further, that the Grand and Royal Victoria (now Holiday Inn) were the only two large hotels in Sheffield at that time. There was, of course, the Rutland Hotel on Glossop Road, which housed the England football that was training at the nearby University for three days in 1964. Just after that, the Hallam Tower hotel (THF) was built ahead of the World Cup in 1966 and the Grosvenor House hotel followed.

The Austalian cricket team stayed at the Hallam Tower but before it's birth, had always used the Maynard Arms at Grindleford. The 1963 West Indian team, with Sobers, stayed at The Grand.

[Stevie Boo]

The rear entance, had a revolving door and then steps down on to Leopold Street. John Spitzer, manager of the Empire could be spotted, frequently, exiting from that entrance.

 

Hi Chairboy,

 

As a child, I often used to play in those revolving doors and was always getting told off by the doormen. I also knew 'Mr Spitzer' and was as surprised as Freda was to learn that he used those doors, what with him being slightly erm 'rotund'!