My Sheffield . . . an Expat returns

[Downsunder]

Back in Auz after a most amazing holiday, just a few thoughts on my time spent here. Apologies to Millsie for not meeting up, hope you had as great a time as me.

 

Orgreave Coke Ovens

It’s been 20 years since I was here last and 40 years since I packed up my tools in a tin trunk and took off for Australia. Orgreave Coke Ovens was an embarrassing symbol of Sheffield’s industrial past, I spent seven years working there and breathing in a cocktail of carcinogens: phenol, benzene, toluene, coal gas, sulphur, bitumen and all the associated by-products derived from the burning of coal. Some years later there were pitched battles and baton charges in the fields and roads around the coke ovens as miners fought for their inheritance. Now Orgreave has gone, cattle graze contentedly on the lush grass and houses encroach on the once black earth. Even though Orgreave may have been an obnoxious necessity, the time I spent there and the people I worked with helped to make me the person I am.

 

 

Kelham Island

I went to Kelham Island on the wrong day. Don’t get me wrong, the 40’s extravaganza was excellent, the displays, entertainment and demonstrations really worth seeing. I just wish it had been somewhere else. It’s my own fault, I shouldn’t have expected that the River Don Engine would be the centre of attraction but to see people filing past it on their way to the entertainment in the courtyard outside just didn’t seem right. When I first saw the River Don Engine in action 20 years ago I was totally smitten and from that time on it became for me symbolic of the city itself, the naked beauty, the colossal power and strangely, the ability to stop and change direction in a matter of seconds. Returning to Sheffield after a long absence, the changes seem to have happened in the blink of an eye. Walking around the city, seeing how she has coped with change, I have often been moved to ask, not ‘How did you do that?’ but ‘Why?’

 

Thornbridge School

One day I went for a walk down Birley Spa Lane from Frechville top, the route the 41 bus used to take. I walked past the spa, even though I’d been that way many times, I never accepted the invitation that the leafy lane held out, so the spa had always been a mystery to me. It was a beautiful July day, the sun was warm on my back and my eyes were welling up with tears. I realised it was 50 years since I had walked that road but nothing seemed as big or as far as it used to be. I caught up with a slightly scruffy young lad who didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. He was wearing the dark green Thornbridge blazer and cap, a leather satchel slung over his shoulder.

“I usually catch bus but it’s nearly end of term, they let us out early to work on our projects”

“What project are you working on?” I asked, but I already knew.

“I’m leaving this year. I might join the navy” He said. But he didn’t.

“Do you think you’ll travel? What about Australia?”

“Not a chance” He said. But his life hadn’t started yet. There were things ahead which he could never imagine.” Walk with me and I will show you what you became. Tell me if you have any regrets” But before he could answer, he was gone. Rainbow Forge had gone too and the stone walls on Main Street no longer enclosed the honest businesses for which they were built but instead bright coloured signs told people what they needed now. I looked for the familiar twin gables of the old village school but was not surprised that they were no more, the school was a ruin when I last saw it 20 years ago. I started to backtrack, I decided my pilgrimage would end at Thornbridge School, the Mecca of my youth, I wanted to walk the road my brother and I had walked so many times, in hail and in shine, in sickness and in health. When Thornbridge was built in the fifties, it was architecturally years ahead of its time, an iconic steel and glass tower with wide corridors and airy classrooms and dedicated departments for science, music and art. Acres of playing fields for football, hockey, rugby and cricket brought an Etonian flavour to a working class estate. I made my way up Thornbridge Drive, eager to see the low stone walls, the pebbledashed council houses, the lamp post that I headbutted one morning trying to finish my homework on the way to school. As I turned the last corner into Thornbridge Avenue my mind flashed hazily back to a wide driveway and a single barred boom gate, the only obstruction to the tennis courts and playing fields beyond. Instead I was met by a high, ugly, black mesh fence soaring fifteen feet into the air and continuing around the entire perimeter. I stared through the padlocked gate and cannot imagine a more contrasting sight. A huge, windowless, corrugated iron structure blocked whatever view of the school I might have had, there was nothing left, no green fields, no laughter, no bike sheds. I stood for a while transfixed, then turned away, disillusioned, sad, pathetically naive. It was now Birley Community College. Thornbridge was no more. Birley had won. The mediocre had triumphed. I went to the pub of the same name and got blotto.

[Cycleracer]

Welcome back to Sheffield 2014 Downsunder and you can walk in many other area and find the same deralict and empty acres that once made our City that it was and Isn't anymore...

Do your self a favour and leave it another 50 years before you come again this time in spirit because it will never be the same.

[Bypassblade]

Thornbridge School

One day I went for a walk down Birley Spa Lane from Frechville top, the route the 41 bus used to take. I walked past the spa, even though I’d been that way many times, I never accepted the invitation that the leafy lane held out, so the spa had always been a mystery to me. It was a beautiful July day, the sun was warm on my back and my eyes were welling up with tears. I realised it was 50 years since I had walked that road but nothing seemed as big or as far as it used to be. I caught up with a slightly scruffy young lad who didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. He was wearing the dark green Thornbridge blazer and cap, a leather satchel slung over his shoulder.

“I usually catch bus but it’s nearly end of term, they let us out early to work on our projects”

“What project are you working on?” I asked, but I already knew.

“I’m leaving this year. I might join the navy” He said. But he didn’t.

“Do you think you’ll travel? What about Australia?”

“Not a chance” He said. But his life hadn’t started yet. There were things ahead which he could never imagine.” Walk with me and I will show you what you became. Tell me if you have any regrets” But before he could answer, he was gone. Rainbow Forge had gone too and the stone walls on Main Street no longer enclosed the honest businesses for which they were built but instead bright coloured signs told people what they needed now. I looked for the familiar twin gables of the old village school but was not surprised that they were no more, the school was a ruin when I last saw it 20 years ago. I started to backtrack, I decided my pilgrimage would end at Thornbridge School, the Mecca of my youth, I wanted to walk the road my brother and I had walked so many times, in hail and in shine, in sickness and in health. When Thornbridge was built in the fifties, it was architecturally years ahead of its time, an iconic steel and glass tower with wide corridors and airy classrooms and dedicated departments for science, music and art. Acres of playing fields for football, hockey, rugby and cricket brought an Etonian flavour to a working class estate. I made my way up Thornbridge Drive, eager to see the low stone walls, the pebbledashed council houses, the lamp post that I headbutted one morning trying to finish my homework on the way to school. As I turned the last corner into Thornbridge Avenue my mind flashed hazily back to a wide driveway and a single barred boom gate, the only obstruction to the tennis courts and playing fields beyond. Instead I was met by a high, ugly, black mesh fence soaring fifteen feet into the air and continuing around the entire perimeter. I stared through the padlocked gate and cannot imagine a more contrasting sight. A huge, windowless, corrugated iron structure blocked whatever view of the school I might have had, there was nothing left, no green fields, no laughter, no bike sheds. I stood for a while transfixed, then turned away, disillusioned, sad, pathetically naive. It was now Birley Community College. Thornbridge was no more. Birley had won. The mediocre had triumphed. I went to the pub of the same name and got blotto.

 

Hi downsunder, glad you enjoyed you're time here & got nostalgic, think yourself lucky my old school is gone, your arch enemy Frecheville :hihi:. Not been in Birley for a while now but used to be my 2nd home 70's 80's & 90's, I remember the fields at Thornbridge that led to the "cow flop" and then the Old Harrow.

 

Pete

[Linnet]

As an Expat I can appreciate how you felt, I too came from that neck of the woods in Woodhouse, many times a walk up to Frechville especially for the Gala week and the Saturday dances at the Frechville Centre and the Co-op, the Blue Bell in Hackenthorpe and the Old Harrow all the places to be seen in in the 60's. Happy memories of carefree days - it is not there anymore. Better remembered in your mind's eye no one can take it away.

This year Sheffield has become my focus for a book to celebrate the Centenary of WW1 in which my maternal grandfather never returned. If you want a good read starting in the Sheffield that existed in 1915 then please visit the webpage you will be able to follow the way through old Sheffield. http://apocketfullofhope.co.uk/

Regards

Lynne

[Downsunder]

Hi downsunder, glad you enjoyed you're time here & got nostalgic, think yourself lucky my old school is gone, your arch enemy Frecheville :hihi:. Not been in Birley for a while now but used to be my 2nd home 70's 80's & 90's, I remember the fields at Thornbridge that led to the "cow flop" and then the Old Harrow.

 

Pete

 

Its all in the past Pete, anyone with TC as his avatar is a mate of mine

[*Belle*]

Time and change march on, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. When you reach a certain age, you tend to notice it more.

 

I have a vision that in 50 years time, my grandchildren will be walking their grandchildren around the fields of Meadowhall and saying, " I remember when this was all shops for as far as the eye can see..... Ahhh halcyon days"

[gregconn]

Thank you Downsunder for those reminisces of Thornbridge and your trip down Hackenthorpe. I was at Birley Secondary Modern School from 1954 (I started the first day the school opened) & I left in 1959. My memories of school are exactly like yours it was a great time to be part of. I have seen photo's of the fencing also felt very sad.

Thank you for your reminder.

[skippy]

Memories are all we really have to hold onto Downsunder, it's not the Sheffield we knew anymore, I don't have any relatives living in the old city nowadays, so I won't be making another trip back.

I'll tell Millsie that you're back.

[Downsunder]

I hope my reminiscing wasn’t too dark, it wasn’t meant to be. My holiday had many more highs than lows, here is one of the best.

 

The Five Weirs Walk

One of the highlights of my holiday was not just doing the Five Weirs Walk but doing the Five Weirs Walk with my brother. He’s sixty something, come to think of it, we both are. Him with his dodgy hip and me with the hernia, setting off one Tuesday morning from the Crucible on another beautiful day in the indian summer of 2014. The Five Weirs – you cannot get more Sheffield than this, walking along the banks of the Don through the heartland of the steel industry. Samuel Osborn, T. W. Wards, River Don Works, Firth Vickers, Hadfields . . . the names roll off the tongue and even though they are just ghosts now, I am so grateful that they did exist. In the heydays of steel in Sheffield (ante full monte) everyone knew someone who worked in the rolling mills or the foundries. My brother-in-law was a labourer in the steel works before Hodgkin’s disease took him at the age of 24.

We did the walk from west to east which is like stepping into the future, you start at Lady’s Bridge, pass under the Wicker Arches and end up at Meadowhall. The walk relates how we went from a nation of producers and manufacturers to a nation of shopkeepers but it says nothing about the blood, sweat and tears that the factories extracted from the men who worked the furnaces. On this sublime walk, the noise of the hammers has been drowned out by the twitter of birds and the tinkling of water over the weirs.

After four miles my brother and I detoured from the tow path to share a welcome pint with the heroes of the Civil War. Did the Civil War have heroes? Heroes or not, their portraits adorn the Oak Room of Carbrook Hall. In 1640 Sheffield didn’t even appear on the map of England but Carbrook Hall did and this magnificent old building welcomed us with open arms. I think it’s the best pint I had in all my time in England. I swear some planets must have aligned at that moment producing a set of circumstances which might never be repeated in my lifetime; the weather, the atmosphere, being on home soil, walking with my brother after so long, a feeling of peace and contentment. I could have stayed there all afternoon but there was Hadfields Weir still to do before I could say I had walked the Five Weirs.

[bullerboY]

Hi Downsunder,Glad that you had a nice visit to your old Home town which gave you some more memories to savour.Me and my wife met Millsie and his wife for a meal.They thoroughly enjoyed their time here and crammed so much in they were Knackered,I think they are pleased to be home for a rest.Best wishes Mel.Ps Skippy hasnt got the stamina these days ehehe sorry Trevor (not).