Doug Turner
Childhood Memories of Totley Bents and Snow
The recent snow fall brought back memories of sixty odd years ago. The most vivid one being around 1930 with No. 2 Tip looking like an enormous mountain of white flour. There must have been a heavy fall as all the residents seemed to be there clearing the roads, pavements didn't exist.
At that time, my family lived in a cottage which has now been combined with the one next door - Gascoin's - to make Turner's Croft. At the other side lived Hooles and their two sons, Fred & Ronnie and two daughters, Violet and Lily, the third daughter Doris Chapman, the mother of my twin playmates Audrey & Betty. Living at the first cottage at the bottom of the lane.
Fred & Ronnie, that winter made a snowman and dog which seemed enormous to me, probably about 12 feet and 4 feet respectively. I remember being lifted onto the dog's back, and I can still feel the cold striking through! In those days the snow ploughs were horse drawn, purpose built from a two wheeled farm cart bed, the blade being wooden battens set diagonally under the body and drawn by however many horses were needed, the local plough being operated by Arthur Kirby of Townhead Farm.
If we could beg a ride or borrow a sledge - few of us had them we had a long ride if conditions were right and we had a good push, we could go from the carner of Strawberry Lea Lane above No. 2 Tip almost down to the Crown Inn at the bottom of Penny Lane. But oh! What a walk back dragging the empty sledge, still it was worth it, even at 4 years of age. We had no fear of traffic on the road then I about the only motors at that time was the milkman, Tom Betts or the lorry belonging to Jackie (Tuppy) Pearson of the Grouse Inn, or Jack Chapman's pony and cart.
March 1993
Childhood Memories of Totley Bents
Around 1930 a new playmate - a boy - George Sheldon arrived. To me this was great as my other playmates were girls: the Chapman twins, two years older than myself and Betty Fox who was a year younger than me. Being the youngest of seven brothers and sisters, the rest of my family were too old to play. Bill the nearest to me was six years older, nearly twice my age (although he is not that now). I used to spend a lot of my time playing in the yard of the Grouse Inn and helping Mr. Pearson tend his cows, pigs aid poultry - he even taught me how to milk cows. If he had work to do on his fields behind the plantation on Baslow Road and needed his lorry up there he would often take me with him.
There was an old character - a "tramp" who used to hang about around there. I suspect he used to sleep in the farm sheds up there. He was known locally as "Sweedy" and the only thing he would say clearly was "I'm John Thomas Osborne care of Beat Green Butts Hill Totley"; he had a bad lisp but could say this quite clearly. He would spend hours sitting on his throne made from tree branches gazing at his kingdom which stretched from "The Peacock", over Totley Moss, Blackamoor, Dore, and round to Sheffield in the smoky distance.
When playing with my friends, if the weather was fit we would spend days playing on the sports field - known in those days as the Sick. If it was raining we would play under the veranda at the "Cricket Inn". If, as often happened, we got boisterous, the landlord - one Bernard Dungworth - would come out and tell us in no uncertain terms to go home - and no-one argued with Bernard.
Times were hard during these years and my father, like many others, had his share of being out of work, and illness too. Many is the time the family have turned out to search for wood to keep the fire burning and keep warm, savinq what coal we could to use in the stove for cooking and baking. To help the money go around my mother went out cleaning one day a week. I was introduced to the rigours of school at the age of four, in the care of sister Margaret and brother Bill, for one day a week. I am told by Bill that I often caused laughter and not a bit of embarrassment, plus some annoyance to the teachers, particularly Johnnie Wood the Head and Bill Wiley.
Spring and Summer were favourite times with wild flowers and blossoms in profusion. Our neighbours - the Gascoines - orchard was covered in blossom turning later to apples - very tempting to a four or five year old lad who had to go through their garden to reach our loo. The Hooles at the other side of us had some of the best lilac I have ever seen and Emma Wright at Rose Cottage had lilac, and the cottage really lived up to its name. Even the drab grey of the tunnel tips were transformed by the golden flowers of the gorse and white hawthorn blossom.
Another memory which stands out, only happened annually at strawberry time, the Annual Camp at the Rifle Range for the "Hallamshires". The troops used to march up Penny Lane in full kit and the stores would come up on horse-drawn gun limbers. Bell tents for the other ranks were pitched on the grass in front of the canteen which is now a car park.
The highlight of this week was the Strawberry Tea for Officers and their guests, held in marquees on the lawn of the Officers Quarters, with the Army Band in attendance. My grandstand seats were on the wall above the Officers Quarters; the top outside step of the stone steps to the hayloft over the cow sheds at Bankview Farm, at that time belonging to Walter Slater - the steps are still there.
My Uncle Billie was Range Warden and caretaker at the canteen and I little thought then that thirteen/fourteen years on I would come to Totley Rifle Range to do my initial Army Firing Tests after six weeks service, and not be allowed to come home. However, two or three weeks later we came again from Derby and were surprised to see my older brother Bill, then a Flying Officer in the Air Force. It caused some raised eyebrows. Bill was on leave and came to see me and to bring manna in the guise of mother's home baked cake and cookies - these being very welcome to supplement Army rations.
Not all memories are pleasant as can be seen on the television programme “Heartbeat” at the time of writing. Around this period I am writing about, Hills, of Upper Bents Farm, suffered the scourge of all farmers, which thankfully doesn’t occur very often these days. Notices appeared on farm gates and fences - “Foot and Mouth Disease – No Entry”.
A police guard on the gates, a mat of straw soaked in disinfectant, a trough or bath of disinfectant just inside the gate, no one allowed in and, above all, an eerie quiet where, the day before, there had been the bawling of cattle, squealing and grunting of pigs and the bleating of sheep. Now nothing, except the cackling of poultry, an occasional barking of dogs, or the stamping of a horse. All the cloven-hoofed animals have gone. Destroyed. And in those days taken away, on the Moors mostly, to be burned and buried. No short cuts across fields whether footpaths or not.
The only entertainment at home at this time was homemade. There was no electricity. Dad had an old crystal radio set with two earphones, one of which he used and we kids vied with each other for a turn with the other. Then, Lo and Behold, the miracle of the age! Electricity had arrived at all the houses in the Bents and, believe it or not, street lighting; if I remember rightly - three lamps. And entertainment in the form of radio – wireless it was called in those days.
One chap in the Bents who didn’t benefit from the electricity was Jack Fox, uncle of my playmate Betty. Jack was a local character, who lived with his dog in a hut on No1 Tip at the side of the “Pepper Pot” (the tunnel ventilator shaft). He was related to Grandma Fox of Lower Bents Farm. I think a lot of Totley people were a bit afraid of him, but if you were polite to him and didn’t try to poke fun at him, or “trespass” on his patch he was OK.
Thinking of the above Grandma Fox, I see the pear tree in the top field is still there. Her granddaughter Betty used to have a swing tied to one of the thick branches; I don’t think that’s there now! Another enjoyable time in the summer was haymaking and harvesting, when it was “all hands to the wheel” and no tractors – horses did the hard work. And the children chasing rabbits before the machinery got them, and picking harvest mushrooms before the same fate overcame them. Then came potato picking and turnip picking.
There was also the threshing of the corn harvest, entailing the visit of the threshing machine pulled by an enormous steam traction engine which, with flywheels and belts, drove the thresher. This, by the way, came from Barlow. Haymaking and threshing made the men very thirsty and the publicans very happy! Even some of the horses were known to enjoy a drop of beer; one of Slater’s could drink straight from a stone one-gallon jar!
July 1993
Doug Turner
Doug was born on 12th December 1926 in Totley Bents, in a cottage just off Strawberry Lea, the youngest of 7 children. The family moved from there, to Lemont Road, when he was nine and he lived there until his marriage, in 1948.
As a boy he was a member of the 1st (All Saints) Totley Cub pack and also sang in the choir in that church, as did most of his brothers. He attended Totley, C of E Primary School and, having passed the 11+, went on to Nether Edge Grammar (the forerunner of Abbeydale Boys Grammar).
He left school on the eve of the Sheffield Blitz and, the following morning, set off to Sheffield to an interview for a job. He never got there as, although he got a lift for some of the way (there being no buses due to the previous nights bombing) he realized that there probably would not be anyone there to, interview him. He related to his son, Stephen, in the 1960’s that, when he got to the bottom of Gatefield Road in Abbeydale, there was a water-filled crater so big that it had a whole tramcar floating in it! Giving up the quest for work for the day, Doug decided to try to see how his married sister, Ethel, had fared, since she lived in the Abbeydale area. He was about to walk up Ethel’s street when a Policeman yelled at him, “Don’t go up there, lad. There’s an unexploded bomb!” Fortunately he did later find Ethel and her family in the place to which they had been evacuated but, if that Policeman hadn’t been there, Doug may not have needed to look for a job!
Soon afterwards, Doug did get a job and, through his work, learned to drive, something which stood him in good stead in later jobs, which were mainly as a driver. National Service came along and Doug was duly called-up (in 1944)
By the time he had finished his basic training, World War 2 was over but, instead of war service, he was sent, as a Paratrooper, to what was then Palestine, but is now Israel. He spoke very little about his experiences in the Peace-Keeping force there, but history shows how violent those times were in that place. Nothing changes.
Doug was offered a job in the peace-time Army, but had had enough of it and wanted nothing more than to finish his National Service, get de-mobbed and go back home and get married. In September 1948, he married Jean Cullingworth, who he had met in his teens and they settled-down in Totley. Their son, Stephen was born in October 1949 and their daughter Angela in November 1953. They lived in Totley for 23 years before moving to Dronfield Woodhouse in May 1971 and Doug has lived there until his death in 2001.
In late 1977, Doug was made redundant from Unilever, for whom he had worked for nearly 20 years. He found another job and thought that things were on an even keel again but it was not to be. Because in July 1978, about a year after the birth of their first grandchild, Jonathan, Jean died, after a comparatively short illness. Doug was devastated to lose her after nearly 30 years of marriage and immersed himself in another new job, which he started soon after Jean’s death. That job was for Vidor batteries and he worked for them for the next 13 years until he retired.
In 1986, much to everyone’s delight, he married Pat, the wedding being blessed in All Saints, Totley., and they settled-down, in Dronfield-Woodhouse, to a peaceful, happy life together. Doug retired in 1991 and, in order to keep active, soon found another “driving job”, this time as a voluntary driver for Transport 17. He nearly didn’t take it as he was told that he would have to have a driving test – something he had never done. (He first learnt to drive during WW2 when the test was suspended and you got a full licence after having 2 provisionals - I think. He got his HGV Class 3, when the HGV licence first came out (as did many others) on an Employer’s Certificate of Competency, having driven vehicles of that nature for over 20 years without accident. He had also driven double-decker buses for Sheffield Transport for about 2 years in the early 1950’s. Sheffield Transport did their own training and test, so he never took a formal MOT driving test! Stephen still has Doug’s first provisional licence and HGV licence as well as his PSV Driver’s Badge.
Pat, however, persuaded him to give it a try and he was accepted as competent to drive the minibuses that comprised T17’s fleet at that time. It was a good move on his part as he had regular contact with many of the Totley residents who had been the parents of his contemporaries – giving many chances for reminiscence. He also got involved in other aspects T17’s work and found it quite fulfilling.
Then, one morning when he had gone out to start the car before going shopping, he came back in the house complaining of feeling ill – a rare event in itself. He was having his first stroke. He never drove again and, although he managed to regain his speech and the use of his legs, he never quite got back the full use of his left arm. Pat cared for him at home as long as she could, but further small strokes followed and he eventually went into a Nursing Home in 1999. He died in Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital on 28th January 2001.
This brief biography of Douglas Turner was written by his son, Stephen.
May 2008