Andrew Russell
I spent my childhood years living at 18, Main Avenue, Totley in the nineteen sixties and seventies. When I grew older I learned from my father that our house had been built in 1911 and was one of the many houses on Main Avenue and the adjoining Sunnyvale Avenue that had been built just before the First World War as a "garden village" by the then famous Sheffield Restauranteur, Mr. Hudson. All the gardens were filled with ornamental and fruit trees. When my parents moved into our house in 1954 there was plenty of evidence of this. I remember as a child that we had three apple trees and one plum tree in the back garden and an almond and lime tree in the front garden, now only two of these still exist. Trees in other gardens have suffered the same fate although there is still a large Monkey Puzzle tree in the front garden further up Main Avenue from that time, and no doubt readers of this article can tell me of many other interesting species in the area.
Sunnyvale Road was once to be called Park Lane. Mr. Hudson envisaged the area looking something like a London garden suburb, but time and lack of money frustrated him in some of his plans. I now live in a London garden suburb and travel down Park Lane to work often, so have thought about his original plan for Main Avenue and this led me on to think about and write down some of my memories of my childhood for the Totley Independent.
When I think back winters always seemed much colder as a child, but maybe I am thinking of the severe winter of 1963. What I do remember from that time is the great Sheffield Gale. Poplar trees on Sunnyvale Road were uprooted and twisted out of the soil, our glass veranda was smashed, my mother awoke to see a greenhouse seemingly floating from one garden to another and my Dad still went to work.
Totley County School
It was also about this time that I started my first years at Totley County Primary School. Opened in 1951 it existed with the much older Totley Church of England School at the top of Hillfoot Road which was opened in 1897. Both are still here today, and as a child I remember some rivalry between pupils of the two as we walked to school. Does this exist today I wonder? In those days work was tailored to getting pupils through the eleven-plus examinations. As a result, all pupils ended up being divided into the 'A' stream for those who academically did well and the 'B' stream for those who did not. This was terribly discriminatory and 'B' stream pupils sometimes ended up being taught in the school stock room.
All children were put into 'houses' and earned 'house points' for their endeavours, gaining them for good work or behaviour and loosing them for bad behaviour. The houses were named after the historic homes in Derbyshire - Chatsworth, Haddon, Hardwick and Thornbridge. Each house's overall total could be viewed on a board near the Assembly Room. A few very lucky or unfortunate people, depending on how you looked at it, were appointed house captains.
I have to say that discipline was pretty strict at times. The Headmistress, Miss Clarehorough, had a cane that I saw only once. I still have a vivid picture of her striding down the narrow main corridor with a cane that was three-quarters her length. However it was more for effect than use. Many pupils were frightened of her, particularly if they were told to wait on one of two 'crush hall mats' outside the Assembly Room to be seen by her.
School Assembly was an important part of school life. Hymn practice came after it on Tuesdays and on Fridays pupils were invited to act in front of the school. This meant children did their own sketches and would queue up to do this, sometimes with costumes on. I really enjoyed this, and with friends planned them carefully and made props with the advantage that my mother was a drama teacher and actively encouraged me.
Out of school, I played with children from neighbouring houses on Main Avenue. We would ride our bicycles, tricycles and scooters up and down the pavement, sometimes racing them from the top of Main Avenue down to its junction with Sunnyvale Road. When my mother developed a bad back when I was still very young, I used to do the shopping for her. At the top of Main Avenue the butcher's shop was owned by Mr. Pashley, the greengrocer's by Mr. Baylis. Further down Baslow Road lay the newsagent's owned by Mr. Wesley. This was a treasure trove of sweets, comics and other items. At the back of the shop, to the left of a high counter where people bought their newspapers and sweets lay books and Matchbox cars. It was here that I bought my first Biggles books and I would spend some time looking at what he had in stock, particularly near to bonfire night. The Co-op lay quite a way from the then single carriageway road. There was plenty of space to play in front of it. Across the road lay Gower and Burgon's, always regarded as a posh alternative to the Co-op.
I sometimes had my hair cut at Monty's, a couple of shops farther up, it was a small hairdressers for men. Invariably I got a pudding bowl haircut, but I grinned and bore it. The other hairdresser was Mr. Harper on Totley Rise; his shop was altogether bigger and grander. I preferred to go there. As I got older, I was allowed to walk down there. Swift's the newsagent had a big shop too, and there was a coffee bar where some of the teenagers hung out.
Totley Hall Training College on demolition day, 1999
When I was thirteen or so we bought a dog, a lovely labrador retriever, with some Rhodesian ridgeback in him. He needed long walks and I would take him up by the Totley Training College. Originally Totley Hall was bought by Sheffield Corporation in 1944, It became a Training College of Housecraft and extensive new buildings were added, close to the Hall. When I was young it was a Training College for teachers, and it was taken in by Sheffield Polytechnic. When very young, I remember a tower block going up behind Sunnyvale Avenue. It was to be a new accommodation area for students, and caused an outcry amongst residents. Being so high, everyone’s garden on one side of Sunnyvale Road was overlooked - their privacy had gone. Now this site lies empty, residents must be breathing a sigh of relief.
I remember at 15 sneaking in with friends to the newly built Students Union building and listening to my first live rock band - String Driven Thing. We must have looked very serious, we thought at any time we would get thrown out. A member of the band told us to "cheer up at the back - you should be enjoying yourselves".
There have been many changes to Totley over the years, and one of the best improvements was the decision to get of of all the prefabricated buildings - the prefabs - situated on or near Green Oak Road. I had a newspaper round that covered this area and remember those thin-walled boxes. Many had damp and suffered the ravages of time, they had out-grown their use as temporary housing for people after World War Two. Finally, thirty years later they were replaced by flats which to my mind were a vast improvement though perhaps some remember them with affection.
Old Totley Library, Abbeydale Road South
A final memory, being a librarian, was the building of Totley Library in the 1970s. Before this the local library had been situated on the junction between Baslow Road and Busheywood Road, where there is now a hairdressers. Here I handed up my books to a lady behind a very high counter before dashing out to Martin's the newsagents next door - is that still there today? On the corner of Busheywood Road was a food store, a small supermarket that had a bad fire in the early seventies. I remember looking on after finishing at King Ecgbert Comprehensive School as flames engulfed the shop inside. A sharp crack saw one of the windows break and I was grabbed by a passer-by and told to keep my distance from the burning building. However memories of Secondary School and life as a teenager and young adult are a different story. Perhaps I should write those memories up too, when I have time.
July 1998