Memories of Totley by Dr. Ian C. Murphy

November 2002

Credentials
I was born on The Grove. I have always been pleased to tell people that I started life in Totley. I have trafficked in the idea that at that time it was part of Derbyshire. But in a recent issue I've read that that stopped in 1935 and I wasn't born until 1936. I also have said as part of my patter that Totley is mentioned in the Doomsday Book though known then as Totingly: hope I got that bit right. I went to Miss Richardson's school on Totley Brook Road, no, not to Miss Trott's on Grove Road anyway. I think that was for girls only. I went to the Cubs and to Scouts, at first in a downstairs room of Totley Hall and later in the Scout Hut, on the left just before the tar road ended and the track began toward Gillifield Woods. Piano lessons were from Madame (sic) Scaife also on the Grove. They started me very early and it was a big relief to learn that I did not have to take our piano with me. As an adult, for about a decade I was the organist at the church near the end of Totley Brook Road, mostly during the time of Rev. Duckworth. A spin off was that I played for so many funerals that I became a bit desensitised, and attending funerals has not been so hard as I reckon it might otherwise have been.

Dark Side
One experience that gave me an early introduction to how nasty humans can be occurred in an area of bushes a little uphill from that end of the Aquaduct, and not far from, I think, Terrey Road. Some big boys had some little boys at their mercy. Thumping and kicking seemed less awful than the following, They picked on one at a time and told him to go home. As this little boy walked away from the group. a big boy went up behind him, put his hands on his shoulders, put his knee in the lower back and pulled. The little boy went down with a thud. This happened repeatedly to each little boy. This next memory is nothing like as bad. I had been 'playing out' with two boys from further up The Grove. That evening Mother had my brother and me in the bath. The water was white with suds. I was supposed to be looking after the soap. At one point, after I'd let it slip under the surface, Mother said, " Where's the soap? " I said "Up pig's arse, on't second shelf ''. She said Ian!! in the most staggered and aghast way. No other punishment was needed. But I was really punished (smacks on bare bum) for being seen to ride my "trike" down The Green, the steep bit, and out into The Grove, with no chance of stopping, had there been anything coming. That learned me.

Bit Naughty
Also near the Aqueduct we treated as a tight-rope the wooden housing that was about 3 feet above ground, about 5 inches square in section, and ran at the top of the cutting from the Aquaduct to the tunnel entrance, presumably carrying cables. A sort of tramp was known to live in a shed near one of the first "pepper pots" venting the tunnel, not far from the Crown Inn and the Cricket Inn. We explored. He came out and chased us. Never went back. We boys planned to get some girls from up The Grove, either into an air raid shelter or into one of the dens in the hedgerows around Dore fields. Came to nothing. I'm especially glad we did not enact the fantasy about Laburnum seeds! Over a wall behind some of the odd numbered houses on The Grove was the garden of Totley Grange. In it was a derelict shed that looked as though it had been used as some kind of office. Some boys took some of the stationery. I've always thought I didn't - could be kidding myself.

Bit Altruistic
We invited boys from Totley Orphanage to tea. Escorted them there and back. I think Mother fixed this up with the staff on account of my sympathy. We did a bit of shopping tor Mr Inman. His house was beautifully positioned on a track running from the top of The Grove to the old village. He had worked in the signal box near the footbridge that crossed the cutting between Totley Brook Road and somewhere near the end of Grove Road. In retirement he offered an explanation of the wet summer. When he was working, trains had got up to 60 mph. Now he told us, planes were going at 100 mph (actually, one had just broken the sound barrier). Planes at 100 mph were unnatural and bound to mess up the atmosphere and cause more rain. From time to time we heard squealing and screaming, and oldies told us it was from pigs being killed at a nearby farm (not Mr Bramhall's where we got the straw for the rabbits). This was one of the early influences that led to Vegetarianism. Mother "put something back in". She ran the Cubs for a few years.

Air Raid Shelters
Father taught us our nightly prayers, which started with, "God bless Mummy and Daddy", and ended with "God bless all the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen, and make sure we win the war". Our air raid shelter was made of "reinforced concrete". Father was a Metallurgist and got us to respect rods of steel embedded in slabs of concrete. Ordinary folk had corrugated iron shelters, and I felt a bit twee over ours, not that the word twee had come out at the time. When the air raid warning sounded, I made sure I took my Dinky car with me down the garden to the shelter, in case the house was hit. One night, after the All Clear had sounded, we were going back to the house. I was gazing ahead and for the first time that I can remember, marvelling at the stars. Father, who ran the lab at a steel works in Ecclesfield, nudged me. I turned round. The sky was orange. He said with a catch in his voice, " hat's Sheffield burning". I cried and still do. The next day or it may have been a day or two rater, he came back with silver salt and pepper pots, which he had rescued from the shattered Directors' Dining Room of the Attercliffe branch. I think this was one of the many times when he said things to Mother that we were not supposed to hear. I surely learnt how awful humans can be to humans. On a nicer note. I think it was after the war, but it could have been during the war, that we started to receive food parcels from relatives in Australia.

German Prisoners of War
Gillfield Woods were being cut down. This was either during or after the war. German POW's did the sawing and chopping. They were guarded by a few of our soldiers. There must have been a lot of trust because the soldiers' rifles were lying in the grass or tree stumps. Once, we kids were picking blackberries. Two Germans left their work and picked loads of blackberries quickly and teamed them into our hands. Because there were leaves and stalks and bits of twig mixed in with the berries, I assumed the National view of Germans must be right. Years later I realised the decency in those chaps. We went to the Baptist Church on Cemetery Road in Sheffield. In those days the 45 bus did not start until late morning on Sundays. So we walked to Beauchief to get the tram to get to the morning service. The bus was OK for coming back and for Sunday school in the afternoon and for evening services. I think it must have been after the war that Baptist Germans were allowed to come from the Lodge Moor camp to that church for morning services. Sometimes, some of them and my family went for lunch to the house of a lady on Oakbrook Road, with whom my Father had "digs" when he was a student. Even though these Germans spoke a bit funny, I remember being pleased that they seemed to be quite nice. In a recent issue of Totley Independent a writer refers to the Flying Fortress that crashed in Endcliffe Park. This was close to where the digs lady lived. The story was that some children went up to the crashed plane. Before it went up in flames, an American airman broke same glass with his fist and asked the children to go to their homes and come back with an axe.

Petrol
During the war men came to the door-asking Dad to sell his car to them. He wouldn't. He kept it in a garage in a row of garages (3rd from the last) off The Green, just after the houses stopped and the road went narrow, down to Basow Road (not far from the first stop from the Terminus at the Cross Scythes, and about opposite the top of Main Avenue, and not far from the Prefabs, though they weren't there then!). After the War there were a few black cars about, and we tried to believe the claim that they were all "official cars". Then came the day when petrol coupons came out. Dad had been doing things to the Singer Nine, including pumping up the tyres, and letting the whole car down off the blocks. There came the day when he came home with a can of petrol. Mum stayed at home with our Sister, the youngest. My brother and I went with Dad to the garage, he put in the petrol, pushed out the car, put in the crank handle, turned it, and the engine sprang into life. I could hardly believe it! I sure was impressed. Among the trips in the next few years were runs out into Derbyshire. We kids used to try to be the first to say, "Look there's another", meaning another car. It was a big total if it was three or four between Totley and The Surprise, and back!

Dr. Ian C. Murphy