The best Sheffielders you have ever met.

[Jim Hardie]

Some interesting storys there cuttsie,i enjoyed reading em.

 

Me too. Keep 'em coming Cuttsie.

[cuttsie]

Some interesting stories there cuttsie,i enjoyed reading em.

Cheers buddy,

Ordinary Sheffielders can have the most extra ordinary stories there must be thousands that deserve to have em told!

[louan]

My friend and I met another girl in a pub near SU grounds. The lads were still drinking so we decided to get some fish and chips before they closed. Without asking she took us home and her Mum made us some bread and maggyann and a cup of tea. Not so complicated as my parents and I've never forgotten it. When I think of Sheffielders, it's people like that I think of.

[cuttsie]

My friend and I met another girl in a pub near SU grounds. The lads were still drinking so we decided to get some fish and chips before they closed. Without asking she took us home and her Mum made us some bread and maggyann and a cup of tea. Not so complicated as my parents and I've never forgotten it. When I think of Sheffielders, it's people like that I think of.

Proper Margarine you cant tell it from stork!

[Sweatshopboy]

I started work in 1961 and had the good fortune to work with some brilliant blokes/characters, The salt of the earth. In furnace cabins, ladle cabins and works canteens I listened to these men and learned about life. Inevitably the topic of the Second World War would crop up and these men would recount their experiences. I worked with Desert Rats, Chindits, Commandos, Parachutists, Submariners and a DEMs Gunner to name a few. But a tale I've always remembered for fifty years is Kelly's story of HMS Penelope (97) (HMS Pepperpot.) Kelly had done a lot of his wartime service in the Mediterranean and though he hadn't served on HMS Penelope, he knew the ship well and he recalled to many a rapt audience the day he saw the ship, so full of holes, the result of enemy action that she carried the soubriquet HMS Pepperpot in the Mediterranean Fleet from then on. I like reading Naval Histories and have since read many books that have mentioned HMS Penelope (97) but none mentioned the Pepperpot, I'd got to thinking that Kelly had used some poetic licence, till about ten years ago I bought PEDESTAL The convoy that saved Malta By Peter C Smith and there it was in black and white HMS Penelope (HMS Pepperpot.) Why this tale should have stayed with me all these years, I don't know, maybe because Kelly always spoke of the Pepperpot with pride and affection, and that I always caught the mist that filled his eyes on the relating.

[cuttsie]

I started work in 1961 and had the good fortune to work with some brilliant blokes/characters, The salt of the earth. In furnace cabins, ladle cabins and works canteens I listened to these men and learned about life. Inevitably the topic of the Second World War would crop up and these men would recount their experiences. I worked with Desert Rats, Chindits, Commandos, Parachutists, Submariners and a DEMs Gunner to name a few. But a tale I've always remembered for fifty years is Kelly's story of HMS Penelope (97) (HMS Pepperpot.) Kelly had done a lot of his wartime service in the Mediterranean and though he hadn't served on HMS Penelope, he knew the ship well and he recalled to many a rapt audience the day he saw the ship, so full of holes, the result of enemy action that she carried the soubriquet HMS Pepperpot in the Mediterranean Fleet from then on. I like reading Naval Histories and have since read many books that have mentioned HMS Penelope (97) but none mentioned the Pepperpot, I'd got to thinking that Kelly had used some poetic licence, till about ten years ago I bought PEDESTAL The convoy that saved Malta By Peter C Smith and there it was in black and white HMS Penelope (HMS Pepperpot.) Why this tale should have stayed with me all these years, I don't know, maybe because Kelly always spoke of the Pepperpot with pride and affection, and that I always caught the mist that filled his eyes on the relating.

 

Those lads that was at war when we were kids are the ones that shaped our future .

 

Have got a tale bubbling up about an old Jack Tar when the mist rises a bit.

[cuttsie]

Will tell you abut Noreen soon, just testing as i typed it out yesterday then the post disappeared must have pressed wrong nob.

[cuttsie]

Will tell you abut Noreen soon, just testing as i typed it out yesterday then the post disappeared must have pressed wrong nob.

 

Here goes.

I first met Noreen in the late sixty,s at a pub called The Bull and Mouth on Castlegate.

Noreen was a working girl! who,s beat was from the Wicker Archers along Walker St and back onto Nursery Street.

As a baby she had been put into a home by her mother ,along with this she had been in various foster homes.

 

When I met her at the bar of the Bull and Mouth she was with her long time companion Pops who at that time was about 70 years old.

Noreen looked after Pops who was in poor health the pair of them lived on an old Barge in the Canal Basin.

 

Noreen was very loud in both mouth and dress and you could hear her coming a mile away ,despite that she was one of the most generous people I have ever met.

If any one was in trouble or skint Noreen would wade in and it did not matter if she knew you are not.

 

One Friday night a couple who used the Bull and Mouth were obviously upset with the middle aged woman in tears ,whats up love shouted Noreen what tha roorin at!.

It turned out that the couple had been threatened by the landlord of the house that they lived in on South St with eviction if they did not come up with the rent arrears of £45 by the following Monday.

Within minutes Noreen was up on stage organising a whip round from the regulars of the Bull who were a colourfull mob to say the least.

Anyway by closing time on that Friday she had raised £18.

 

Noreen then told all and sundry that she would have the money for the poor couple by Sunday night by hook or by crook [not exactly in those words].

 

Sunday arived and lots of laughing and spouting was going of as to wether Noreen and the collected £18 along with the promised rest of the money would show up when the double doors that opened onto Waingate burst open and Noreen and Pops did a grand entrance .

Get me a blee--n pint shouted Noreen my f--y is on fire, so to lots of uproar and comments she told us all how she had done double shifts on her beat for two nights running and with great cheers from us lot she plonked the full rent money down on the bar before giving it to the couple in need.

 

This was not the only time Noreen helped people out although her and Pops were often on the bread line themselves. She was looked down on by many people around town who thought she was a pain in the a--e but she was another Sheffield diamond who just faded away.

 

The last I heard of Noreen about five years ago when she was in an old folkes home somewere around St Philips Road and was told that she was as loud as ever at eighty years old.

[trastrick]

Not sure they qualify as "sheffielders" but my time as an apprentice electrician at Steelo's opened a new world for me.

 

It was the 50's and suddenly there was this big influx of commonwealth immigrants. Along with Hungarian refugees, all the big firms were supoposed to do their bit "for the empire" and take as many as they could. How naive we all were then!

 

In the snap cabin, We had big Trinidadian George who intruduced me to curried goat (yuck!) Haji from Somalia who went on to open the first ethnic restaurant in a hole in the wall on Button Street. Hindus and moslems from SE Asia who couldn't speak a word of english, and one character we called "King of Africa".

 

All labourers, but he would come to work in a old 3 peice striped suit, bowler hat and carrying an umbrella! I gues he must have seen pictures in an old book in Africa on how englishmen were supposed to dress. They all seemed so primitive to us, and were treated badly by some of our guys, not because of "racism" (a relatively new word then) but because of their personal habits.

 

The real racism was between the newcomers. While we all chowed down in the cabin at lunch time, the Hindus wouldn't eat with the moslems and stayed outside in the cold. Some of the Hindus could not be in the same room as somebody who they felt to be "unclean" or untouchable by their religion or diet etc.

 

It was a real mish-mash and gave a young guy like me a big insight to the problems of the world yet to come.

 

I took big George into his first workingman's white pub but, big as he was, he didn't want to go in (he said he wanted to cause no trouble, mon) I said "F*** 'em" and p[ushed him in. He got some funny looks, but kept quiet and we had our well earned pint.

 

All in all, we had lots of laughs, and learned more about the world, and each other, than we did from the BBC.

 

Priceless!

[cuttsie]

Not sure they qualify as "sheffielders" but my time as an apprentice electrician at Steelo's opened a new world for me.

 

It was the 50's and suddenly there was this big influx of commonwealth immigrants. Along with Hungarian refugees, all the big firms were supoposed to do their bit "for the empire" and take as many as they could. How naive we all were then!

 

In the snap cabin, We had big Trinidadian George who intruduced me to curried goat (yuck!) Haji from Somalia who went on to open the first ethnic restaurant in a hole in the wall on Button Street. Hindus and moslems from SE Asia who couldn't speak a word of english, and one character we called "King of Africa".

 

All labourers, but he would come to work in a old 3 peice striped suit, bowler hat and carrying an umbrella! I gues he must have seen pictures in an old book in Africa on how englishmen were supposed to dress. They all seemed so primitive to us, and were treated badly by some of our guys, not because of "racism" (a relatively new word then) but because of their personal habits.

 

The real racism was between the newcomers. While we all chowed down in the cabin at lunch time, the Hindus wouldn't eat with the moslems and stayed outside in the cold. Some of the Hindus could not be in the same room as somebody who they felt to be "unclean" or untouchable by their religion or diet etc.

 

It was a real mish-mash and gave a young guy like me a big insight to the problems of the world yet to come.

 

I took big George into his first workingman's white pub but, big as he was, he didn't want to go in (he said he wanted to cause no trouble, mon) I said "F*** 'em" and p[ushed him in. He got some funny looks, but kept quiet and we had our well earned pint.

 

All in all, we had lots of laughs, and learned more about the world, than we did from the BBC.

 

Priceless!

Hi there buddy, It was the same in the building trade ,I had a mate called Big Joe who worked for Longdons he was a Jamacan and the names we used to call each other would see us in jail now, Big Joe used to call me Honky baby and his name on the site was Black Joe how all the joking changed to what we have today i will never understand.

Still this is about The best Sheffielders we have known so lets hope there is thousands of stories to come?