In addition to the small domestic Anderson shelters, there were two public shelters provided; one on Totley Rise, and one what is now the playing field adjacent to Totley All Saints School. The one on Totley Rise was built opposite the Post Office on land which had been levelled in the improvement scheme mentioned above. The shelter next to All Saints School was used by the school whenever there was an air raid alert, whether this was a practice or the real thing. By 1943 the school had an overspill class which occupied the Chapel building down Chapel Lane. When there was an air raid alert the sprint which was necessary from the Chapel to the shelters was quite taxing to many of the young pupils. 

The Army was present in Totley in two areas, with different roles. There was an anti-aircraft battery which was located on land by the drive to Woodthorpe Hall at the bottom of Wings Hill. Old foundations of some of the buildings were still evident on this site quite recently. At Totley Bents there was a fairly large army camp, but here the emphasis was less on the purely defensive. Based at the Rifle Range was a training centre for a detachment of the Airborne Division. It was quite a familiar sight to see the soldiers set off in the early morning on a route march, and then see them returning up Penny Lane in the mid afternoon. This all sounds rather simple of course; that is until you realise that these route marches were carried out at the double, and whilst carrying full pack and weapons - excess of 60lbs. weight. There can be no doubt that this training probably in improved the toughness of the airborne soldiers considerably. 

During the war Totley had its own Fire Station which was located on Baslow Road at Tatley Rise on the site now occupied by Gordon Lamb. Either 2 or 3 appliances were based here, and of course, these were the operational counterparts of the various supplies of water which have been mentioned earlier. Earlier in the war, this station had been manned by the Auxiliary Fire Service, (A.F.S.), but by mid-war manning was by the National Fire Service, (N.F.S.). Whether this was merely a change of name, or whether there was greater significance in this, I do not know. Again, whether this station was engaged in much fire-fighting as a consequence of enemy action I do not know; but I suspect that it was not. But there was one aspect of fire-fighting where it was quite active. The gorse in the field off the drive leading to Woodthorpe Hall seemed to be prone to spontaneous combustion, for each successive year during this period it managed rather mysteriously to catch fire. This called for a turn-out of the Fire Station on Totley Rise to extinguish the blaze. 

Dad's Army, in the guise of the Home Guard, was also active in Totley during these wartime years. The detachment H.Q. was at Abbeydale Hall, which was, in fact, the local H.Q. for all Civil Defence functions. Training took place every weekend; and included rifle and weapons practice on the Rifle Range, and periodic training manoeuvres ranging throughout the district. 

Food-rationing was quite severe by this time, thanks to the cripplingly-high shipping losses referred to earlier . Most foodstuffs were rationed, but bread and potatoes were not yet rationed - their turn came later. If you decided to keep a pig in the bathroom (or even in the backyard), and feed it on potato peelings cadged from the neighbours and also acorns collected from the many oak trees growing in the district, then when you got tired of it, or just thought that the time had come for it to form a supplement to the meagre bacon and meat ration, then you could not just kill it at will. First you had to get permission from the Inspector at the Ministry of Food. Meanwhile, the pig enjoyed a privileged and fully protected status until you obtained that permission; and also surrendered your ration book. From the point of view of supplementing the meat ration, chickens were a better proposition, since it could always be argued that the fox had got in. And since there were plenty of these predators about, it was neither practical nor necessary to specify the precise identity of the culprit. 

Though food rationing was severe, several grocers would deliver the weekly order. The grocer and beer-off at the top of Totley Rise, now the wine shop, made deliveries by horse and dray. But for the most part, shopping was done personally on foot. From time to time one could also see the Rington's Tea horse-drawn outfit making local deliveries. 

The horse and cart was found useful by the roadsweeping and maintenance also. One such outfit was hired from Kirby's farm at the top of Totley. This particular horse was quite docile, and responded well to this type of work.

Roadside verges were not cut until late June; the accumulated growth was then cut as hay by a local farmer. This, and the next item, indicate the extent to which belt-tightening took place at this time. No access was allowed to the recreation ground on Mickley Lane from Spring until the end of June. During this period the grass was allowed to grow and then cut as hay, again by a local farmer, though not necessarily the same one. In all probability, the same system applied at the recreation ground at Totley Bents. At the Mickley Lane recreation ground the lower half of the field was ploughed-up, and a cereal crop, probably wheat, was grown there.



A notable feature of daily life at this time was the 'Dig for Victory' Campaign. Each household was encouraged to turn the front garden, (and the back one also if it could be spared), over to growing vegetables. This was a particularly important matter so that the maximum amount of food could be grown at home and thereby reduce the reliance placed on shipping, which, as already mentioned, was suffering losses at the hands of the U-boats. To help increase home production additional land was made available for allotments; and everyone was encouraged to take on the cultivation Of an allotment. In Totley, allotments were provided in large blocks on the land between Aldam Road and the Recreation ground, where the new Council Estate is now, and on the land between All Saints School and Baslow Road. Smaller blocks of allotments were provided at various other sites. Various horticultural supplies, including seed potatoes, could be obtained at Abbeydale Hall. The popular Growmore fertiliser, then known as National Growmore, is a remarkably long-lived relic from the 'Dig for Victory' Campaign. 

Cherrytree Orphanage had quite a large number of children at this period. For many of these children their only 'crime' was that they had nobody else to look after them when their dad was conscripted into the army, as in the case of Anne and Betty Murray. Such children as these paid their own price for the war. But another lad, aged about 7 years at this time, though still enjoying the.privilege of living at home with his mother and sister, had hardly seen his dad, who was in the army and had been in India for most of the war. The children from Cherrytree would walk down Mickley Lane from the orphanage in an orderly group each morning, up the footpath on the Laverdene side of Mickley Lane to Baslow Road, cross and walk up the Heatherfield side of Baslow Road to get to All Saints School. (Only the one side of Baslow Road had a proper footpath at this time). For the whole of their journey, the children formed an orderly group, rather like little soldiers themselves, and were under the jurisdiction of the senior boy or girl, who, though only 13 years old, exercised a strict discipline. As there were probably twenty or so in the group, the senior boy or girl took on quite a responsibility for a 13 year old; but they did not allow any messing about. Cynthia and Sonia Mills were at different times senior girl, and though they kept firm control on their charges, I remember that when some minor mishap happened to me, the exact nature of which I have long since forgotten, then the warm and tender side of these girls could, and did, show despite the austerity of the regime in which they lived.

At this time, Cherrytree faced something of a test with regard to education. I do not know whether anyone from Cherrytree had passed the Scholarship exam, (later known as the 11-plus qualifying exam) previously; but I do not think that anyone had passed far some years. In 1942, I think, a boy called Norman caused some consternation when he passed for Nether Edge Grammar School, for this posed problems regarding the provision of facilities for homework and study. But if Norman made the system creak, worse was to come, for in the very next year a girl, Iris Benton, nearly wrecked it when she struck a blow for women's rights and passed for Abbeydale Girls Grammar School. But credit is due to the Matron and powers that be at Cherrytree, because ways and means were found such that Norman and Iris and others following, were able to go on and have the benefit of the grammar school education of which they had shown themselves worthy.

On the matter of education, All Saints School was the only non-private school at Totley at this time. Because Totley had formerly been in Derbyshire, and had become part of Sheffield only a few years before, (1935), pupils who so wished could take two Scholarship exams, one for Sheffield Grammar Schools, and one for the Derbyshire Henry Fanshawe Grammar School at Dronfield. Nationally only about one pupil in ten passed the exam for entry to grammar school; and this would mean no more than three pupils a year passing from Totley, on average. Totley All Saints had done better than this for several years; but in 1943 there was somewhat of an upsurge. In that year about half of the pupils taking the Scholarship, i.e. about 14 or 15 were successful in obtaining places at grammar school. In the following year even better results were obtained when more than 15 out of 28 obtained places. Despite criticism that exam successes do not show the whole story, this much better achievement than national average shows that credit is due both to teachers and pupils for such excellent results.

Though outside the Totley area proper, not far away was the Fairthorn Chi1drens' Home. This had been requisitioned as an annexe to the Children's Hospital during the war. The aunty of a boy living on Greenoak Road was Cook there. In 1941, I spent 3 weeks at Fairthorn, flat on my following head injuries; and the meals were very good, and they formed reasonable compensation for the injustice of being confined to bed on my back for so long. 

Street lighting was something of a problem in Totley during the war years, since, for the most part, it was virtually non-existent. Such lighting as there was consisted almost entirely of inadequate gas lamps. But even these had been modified by fitting a special hood to ensure that only a tiny fraction of their total output ever emerged to serve the purpose of lighting the street. The philosophy behind all this seemed to be that if it could be seen by anyone on the ground, then the light could also be seen by the bombers. As there was also a complete general blackout in force for all buildings, Totley was a very dark place at night. Yet despite all this, the situation was made even worse when some young do-gooders decided to shin up the lamp-poles and turn out the gas lights. Of course, there was something of distinction in this, since it was only the more able climbers who could shin up a metal lamp-pole anyway.

The foregoing items, despite their total length, are merely a selection of facts and incidents from the scene in Totley 50 years ago, and nowhere near a complete representation of wartime life here. Perhaps there are others who feel that they have something which it would be rather a shame to allow to become lost. If so, then maybe they will consider committing it to writing. Could it be that we should try to emulate our predecessors, but instead of engaging in a 'Dig for Victory' Campaign, we should engage in a 'Write for Posterity' Campaign?

March 1993