Memories of steelworkers

[rossyrooney]

Yes, no Health & Safety in those days !

 

too true.

my dad worked as a roller at firth brown norfolk bar mill and as the steel bars were being rolled they gave off fumes,especially the special steels.

 

their idea of h&s was to dip a sweat towel in a bucket of water and put it in their mouth till they had finished.

[Kidorry]

Have a look at this.Hell! But I’d go back tomorrow

 

This DVD contains a record of the lives of steelworkers of Sheffield and Rotherham , told in their own words to a team of volunteer interviewers between 1999 and 2001. It was made to capture a small part of their histories and of the industry that made Sheffield , before their voices are lost. It is the principal product of a project conceived as a fitting way for Sheffield ’s ‘No.2’ Branch of the Workers’ Educational Association to mark the millennium. By the time the year 2000 came it was almost too late to record these stories and sadly two of our interviewees died before the project was completed. This archive is dedicated to them.

 

How to use the archive

 

The archive consists of recordings from 29 interviews. Each one was broken down into short sections and indexed. This means that the recordings can either be browsed, interview by interview, or you can search for all the references made by interviewees to specific subjects. For example, you can hear Joan Kirby’s entire interview, or you can pick out and listen to the sections in which workers from minority ethnic backgrounds speak about their relationships with white colleagues and managers.

 

Background to the project

 

Other histories of the Don Valley steel industry exist. This project complements these by giving the workers’ side of the story - their stories as real people, inside and outside the works, not just as ‘the labour force’. The interviewees talk about what it was like in the mills and factories – the sense of community, the hazards, the politics, the conflicts – and about the impact of these jobs on their family lives.

 

Some of them worked in the steel mills themselves, while others were employed in the many supporting industries. Here are people from the rolling mills, crane drivers, fettlers and one of the very few surviving pattern makers, who painstakingly built the wooden models from which the engineers worked. Many of these men and women have skills which will disappear with them, since although steel is still produced in the Don Valley ; the workforce is a fraction of its previous size: the technology has changed and steel is made by computer-controlled machines.

 

We also tried, with some success, to talk to those who have largely been left out of other histories, which portray ‘the Don Valley steelworker’ as a white man. Most were, but women worked in the industry as well, both during the Second World War and in peacetime, and there were many steelworkers of Yemeni, Afro-Caribbean and other non-White backgrounds. While they shared much of the same environment, their experiences were often very different, facing racism and discrimination alongside the normal risks and hazards of their workplaces.

 

The project team

 

Jan Caborn, Leah Fleetwood, Peter Byrom, Robin Garside, Steve Connelly and Stuart Crosthwaite.

 

Acknowledgements

 

Our thanks go to the many people who made this project possible. Firstly of course, to our interviewees who contributed so much of their time and put their hearts into making this a living record of a disappearing past. We were given a huge amount of support and advice from people far more experienced in history projects than we are. Thanks in particular to Mike Spick of the Sheffield Library Service, Shirley Miller and Katherine Hamilton at Kelham Island Industrial Museum , Sheffield . We also an enormous debt to Pete Byrom who developed the electronic indexing system – the first of its kind as far as we know! Lastly we thank our funders: Awards for All, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and the Sheffield No. 2 Branch of the Workers’ Educational Association who gave us the idea and an organisational ‘home’ for the project.

 

The Workers’ Educational Association

 

The Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) is the country’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education. Democratic in its structure and its approach to education, it has had close links with the labour movement since it was established in 1903. Its principal aims are to stimulate and respond to the demand for liberal adult education, providing in particular for the needs of working class people and those who are socially, economically or educationally disadvantaged. The Sheffield No. 2 Branch is a proud inheritor of this tradition. Each year its volunteers and paid staff organise a programme of courses which emphasises making liberal education accessible in areas and in subjects neglected by other providers; social and political issues and supporting community organisations.

 

 

 

For more information on the WEA visit http://www.wea.org.uk, or contact

 

Workers’ Educational Association

Yorkshire and Humber Region

Regional Office

6 Woodhouse Square

Leeds

LS3 1AD

 

tel: 0113 245 3304

email: yorkshumber@wea.org.uk

[heathl4]

Thankyou so much to everyone that has replied, look forward to hearing more so please keep them coming. I will post up the work as it progresses and thankyou again, what a wonderful forum. My admiration to all those who worked in these industries..must confess two days forging and i have muscles aching i didnt know i had! Thankyou again and please continue to send in replies. Lucianne.

[santho_naray]

Nice to see this thread...being new to Sheffield and heard lot about its Steel History, would like to see any old Steel Factory...is there any option...or any Great Museum in and around sheffield?

[Kidorry]

Nice to see this thread...being new to Sheffield and heard lot about its Steel History, would like to see any old Steel Factory...is there any option...or any Great Museum in and around sheffield?

There is Kelham Island industrial museum on Alma St. near the city centre.

[patrick38]

Nice to see this thread...being new to Sheffield and heard lot about its Steel History, would like to see any old Steel Factory...is there any option...or any Great Museum in and around sheffield?

 

magna at templebrough

[santho_naray]

Thanks Kidorry and Patrick for the quick reply...Any Factory Visits you know?

[patrick38]

magna is a old steel factory .not sure boute factory visits try phoning forgemasters up see if they will let you have a look round

[steelman79]

magna is a old steel factory .not sure boute factory visits try phoning forgemasters up see if they will let you have a look round

 

Dont think forgemasters allow visits round their melting shop but maybe machine shops?

When i worked on c furnace in stocksbridge melting shop there was a walkway all around the melting shop,one afternoon shift i was putting some iron ore in the furnace with the charger and it blew up (damp) just as a party of visitors were on the walkway, cue everybody diving onto walkway floor

[wizzlad]

i worked in no 2 melting shop,for 36 years,for welleman bros,then in the brickies,hard ,hot ,dusty,got your work done in them days the went 2 the pub