Dan Reynolds

The old snap fronting the Totley Independent no 310 is none other then the old white washed cottage next to The Crown Inn and side of Penny Lane. The lady outside is Mrs Unwin maiden name Coates and brother to Charlie who lived on Lemont Road. The previous tenant was a Mr Fred Axe and family. Mr Axe being one of the many little mesters of Sheffield and I think he was part of the line of men who made razors (cut throats). He was a Wednesdayite and his wife would meet up with him at home matches to bring him home. I say bring him home because win or lose he was well over a pint or two but always under self control. A keen gardener of a Sunday morning, he would be seen tending his beloved roses and other plants but roses were his speciality. The same applied to Bill Proctor with roses and he was also a little mester other than that I cannot say why their hobbies were alike. 

Stan Dronfield

The photo on the front page of the Totley Independent for February 2008 was the cottage at the bottom of Hillfoot Road, just below The Crown Inn and the person in the doorway was my mother’s sister, my aunt, Alice Unwin, wife of Harry Unwin, better known by the older villagers as Goshen. 

Pat Crapper (Hoyland)

Your photo on the front cover is of Mrs Coates, this was taken outside her cottage at the bottom of Hillfoot Road. The building to the side which is still standing is the The Crown Inn. There was a wooden gate between the 2 buildings and Mr Coates used to stand there for hours watching the world and everyone go by. They had a son Les who married May Lee from Dore. Mrs Coates used to go in The Crown nearly every night with a jug to get some beer for Mr Coates, she used to sit and have a drink herself and chat to other drinkers. Harold and I used to go in The Crown quite a lot in those days when we were courting and Mrs Coates bought us a wedding present when we married in 1960. The village kids I am sure will remember when we used to sledge from the top of Hillfoot Road to The Crown and Mrs Coates and Mrs Symes who lived in the house above The Crown used to throw their fire ashes over the track to stop us. It never did.

Also in your magazine Jo Rundle wrote about The Grouse at Totley Bents. This pub was only a beerhouse. Tuppy and Mrs Pearson kept it when my sister Betty and I were young, they kept pigs in the yard and in those days they used to kill one every now and then and our Uncle Joe Marshall used to help them, his reward for this was a bit of pork and some chittlings, something I still love to eat. When the Pearsons retired Roy and June Foster took over the pub, a younger couple, but it still stayed a beerhouse only. When they left Mr and Mrs Clark from Dore came to live there with their daughter Vera and their 2 sons Eric and John. They had a milk round, Vera also ran a milkround then when John left school he helped and John and his wife Sandra still ran the milkround from The Grouse, still helped by Vera. They all helped in the pub.

The pub finally closed its doors at the end of October 1958 and the licence was transferred to another pub. John and Eric and their wives still own The Old Grouse Inn, Eric is my brother-in-law. I was born 70 years ago at Elder Cottage, Hillfoot Road. There was Evans shop, Maries’s who also had a motor repair shop in the yard and the Dronfields. Mrs Dronfield was Mrs Coates sister, the lady on the front page, and the Otters in the other house. Opposite our house up some wooden stairs, next door to the Maries’s, was Totley Sports and Social Club room where the football and cricket teams were run from. There was a snooker table and on Tuesday afternoon and Thursday night a whist and solo drive was held.

Also every so often Fred Eaton used to run a picture show on a Saturday night, old films – but that didn’t matter as it was cheap. The film that still stands out in my mind, even today, was the Loch Ness Monster, it used to frighten us to death. He hadn’t a lot of films so you saw it more than once. In the interval Bill Fox from Coal Aston used to bring Ronckleys ice-cream to sell, he used to come round the village most nights as well. I can always remember when I was young they used to sell ice-cream birthday cakes, we all thought they were something special. 

Unfortunately, the clubroom was closed down in the late 1950s, it was such a shame as it was a meeting point for the village. It was altered into a flat for John Maries when he got married. Betty and I had a wonderful childhood in old Totley, every lady was auntie to us and all the kids in the village. If there was anything going off , like a party or a dance in the school, everyone helped baking and making sandwiches, tea, coffee and soft drinks - no alcohol. It was a great time. Dick Wrigglesworth and his band used to play for the dances.