Frank Young
Schooldays in Totley
I started Totley C of E Infants in January 1936. Miss Marsden was the teacher — a very OLD lady!!. She came from Dore. In the classroom was a big coal-fired stove with a guard round it. Miss Marsden heated up my bottle of miik in a little saucepan on the stove, but I still didn’t like it. Coronation year was 1937 and I received a pen-knife and a tin of chocolate. The girls had scissors and chocolate, this was in the next class, but I can’t remember the teacher’s name.
I was in a class in the hall when the Second World War started. I can’t remember this teacher's name either, but I remember she wore glasses. The reason I remember the glasses is because the blackboard fell from the easel and knocked the glasses off her nose. Peter Hills - who came from Cherry Tree orphanage, and was a big pal of mine - and I laughed and were given the stick. In that same, year the Class performed a play. called ’The Highway Man’. Michael Cowley played the lead; Bob Johnson was 'Tim the Ostler' with, 'hair like mouldy hay' or something like that.
The air-raid shelters were up the field adjoining the school. We had to go in occasionally to practice, in case there was a raid. I remember one day Mr. Shirt, who was in the Forces, turning up on his bicycle with his saddle bag full of conkers, which he dished out to all the children. In the winter when it was icy, we made a long slide from the gate on Hillfoot right down the yard, Don Dean was the best 'Little Man'. That means sliding crouched down. I then went into Mr. Ramsden's class in the new building. We had to dig for victory in the school garden, where we grew carrots and other vegetables. Peter Mills and I would sneak off to Evans's bakery for a still-warm loaf when we should have been gardening. At dinner times we would go to play down Penny Lane, or on the tip - usually we were in trouble when we got back!
Trouble meaning the stick. I remember Mr. Ramsden stewing senna pods in the classroom (I wonder why?); also Charlie Atkinson brought his baby rabbits from home and put them in his desk. About this time, the air-raid supplies of chocolate, sweets and biscuits went missing from our classroom cupboard. The culprits were found and whacked with the board compasses.
Rita Evans, Doreen Pitt and Muriel Short passed the 11 plus and were in tears when they left school. Doreen lived in the house on the moors above the Rifle Range. At some point schools were closed and we had to do what was called 'Home Service'. This meant lessons in someone's house. In my case, Mick Sharman's house on Laverdene, next door to Eric Taylor on one side and Charlie Higginbottom on the other. I also remember going to the Old School house at the top of All Saints Church drive for lessons. As well as the 3 Rs etc. we had to do country dancing in the yard. I was supposed to dance with Margaret Marsh {Boggy Marsh’s sister). Ugh:! Not my scene, at 9 or 10 but I soon changed say ideas about girls.
Going home from school down Mickley Lane, Peter Hills would use his gas mask plus case as a football. Another good pal was Brian Pearson whose father ran Heatherfield Nursery. We used to play in the greenhouses full of tomatoes or up in the loft above bales of peat. Brian lived on 'The Green' with his sister, mother and father in a posh bungalow. They must have been very rich because they had a 'WASHING MACHINE', not like our boiler, tub and pusher. To make the machine work you turned a handle on top which turned a paddle inside the drum.
Another pal was John Skinner from Main Avenue, who knew all there was to know about galleons and ships of that era and was good at poetry as well. I failed the 11 plus so had to go to the Old Chapel down Chapel Walk until I left to go to Abbeydale Council School, about 1942.
I joined the Cubs in 1940. The Scout hut was in betwween Rose Cottage and the Crown Inn. It was it an old tea-room but that is is another story.
September 1997
More Totley Memories
We moved to Totley in 1933. The houses on Green Oak Road and Aldam Road had just been built. The roads round there were all right, but Glover Road was a cart track.
Green Oak Road houses finished at Ray Wilson's house, No. 41, I think. Opposite was Mr, Webb's house, he was the railway signal man at the signal box at the end of Grove Road. Beyond their houses were fields, but through the fields went an unmade road, and parked on the road was a big steam engine, used for flattening the new roads. During the 1939-45 War, we made allotments in those fields. There was a barn in between Green Oak Park and the allotments. Then came the prefabs, and all the fields that we played in were built on. The Lamp man Bob Carr refers to was Sid Shaw's father, they lived at 29 Green Oak Road.
On Milldale Road, before the houses on the left going down were built, I remember going to a fairground. The roundabouts must have been powered by Steam Engines. I must have been taken by my mother. Unfortunately she fell off the roundabout and broke her watch, but luckily she wasn't hurt.
I wonder if Bob Carr went potato or gooseberry picking? We were paid for doing this, and money earned from singing in the All Saints' choir came in handy as well. We made use of wheels in the All Saints' Scouts, as it was then called. The first Scout camp I went to, in 1942, was at Hathersage. To get there, we pushed and pulled the 'Trek Cart' full of tents, blankets, food etc. all the way from Totley up to Owler Bar, on to Fox House, the Surprise and down to Hathersage, then up the road towards Abney (opposite the Plough Inn) to Dungworth’s Farm. I also went in 1943 and 1944, but I can't remember how we travelled then. I remember someone telling us of the D-Day Landings.
We also camped at Sheldon's farm fields on the edge Of Gillifield. Does anyone remember the Whitsun holiday camp? There was a violent storm, the stream where we kept the milk cool (no cool bags then!) flooded, and we lost the milk. Also, a tent was ripped by hailstones. Those were the GOOD DAYS!
On 17th September 1945,at the age of 14, I started work at Hadfield East Hecla, which is now under Meadowhall.
July 1998