Dore to Door internet edition

Local history - Spring 2005

Oral History Collection (In conversation with Reginald Skelton) - Letters (Memories stirred and The railway navvies)

Oral History Collection - in conversation with Reginald Skelton

Reginald Skelton was born at 71, Nairn Street, Crookes, Sheffield on the 11 th March 1920, the second in a family of two boys and three girls. His father, Charlie Skelton was head gardener at the spacious residence on Shore Lane of Mr. Tozer, partner of Steel, Peech and Tozer, one of Sheffield's most successful steel manufacturers. His mother, Eveline who was also born in Crookes came from a family of seven girls .

Reg was educated at Lydgate Lane School and left at fourteen years of age. His father got him his first job at Brookberry's Nurseries at the top of Greystones Road, where he had worked himself as a young man. Six months later Reg went after a post as assistant gardener at Red House, Sandygate Road, the home of Mr. Wigfull, chairman of Wigfull Flour Mills and Stones Brewery. Reg recalls "I went up and saw the head gardener, Mr. Atkinson and he gave me the job. I told a little fib and said I was older than I was and he accepted this." Reg remembers Mr. Atkinson as being a remarkable man and an excellent gardener.

Reg left home when he was sixteen as he explains, "My father believed in sending you away to learn yer job. My older brother worked on the Marquis of Bristol's estate at Bury St. Edmunds so I was sent to a bothy at Coldicote,Hertfordshire as a kitchen garden journeyman". Bothies were lodging houses for young gardeners on big estates which were overseen by a foreman who organised the workers , depending on age and experience, to tasks in the kitchen garden, pleasure garden or glass-houses. On his return to Sheffield , Reg was employed as "second man" at Lady Mappin's residence on Fullwood Road. He was there in April 1939, when, at the age of nineteen, he was called up into the Territorial Army.

Reg tells the story. "We went down to Edmund Road. We all queued up outside; a beautiful morning it were, I remember. There were all the sweethearts there and mothers crying and such like; a sad time. We passed through the doctors and we received our bounty money which was £5 and came out. We thought we were going a long way; they put us in coaches and we finished up at Parkhead House!". From there Reg was sent on an advance party to Knowle Green House, Dore He relives that moment. "It was a gorgeous house standing at the end of Newfield Lane. The thing that I saw that struck me more than anything was a beautiful fireplace just inside the door. There were lovely parquet floors and the whole place was spotless. The lady was handing it over to the military, you see." The name of the lady cannot be recalled. The territorials soon settled in and when heavy snowfalls prevented the ration lorry from getting up Townhead Road Farmer Greaves and Jo Andrews tried to force a way through with a horse plough. The whole army group were commandeered to help the Yorks and Lancs dig out a train that had got stuck in a snow drift at the Woodhead Tunnel.

In a gesture of friendship the people of Dore laid on a hot sausage and mash supper for the soldiers which was held at the British Legion , now the Dore Club premises. Reg laughs at the memory of this. "The beer was poured straight from the barrel into enamel jugs and they were ladling this beer out from jugs into pots. The officer was called Hall, only a young lad in his twenties, and the sergeant was drunk; they'd been putting whisky into him!" It would seem that while the men were staggering back to Knowle Green, Reg slipped away to meet his new sweetheart Winnie Wallis outside the corner shop and just managed to get back before roll-call. "I remember running across this field in the bloomin' snow and sludge and jumping through this window, getting into bed and covering meself up with all the uniform, hobnail boots and all lot on , when roll-call come."

Life was fun for the handsome, young Gunner Skelton, especially on off-duty Friday nights. In the Hare and Hounds Mrs Clarke, the landlady used to entertain the lads by playing the piano and in The Devonshire Arms Ted Thorpe always gave them a good welcome. Reg declares "The people of Dore were absolutely marvellous, you know!" And at the end of the evening "We all finished up in the little wooden chip shop. The blackout was on and when you went in it was like hell's kitchen with all the steam coming out."

In May 1940 Reg's battery was moved from Knowle Green to a disused cotton mill in Edale to prepare them for active service in France. However, events took a different turn and on the 29 th May 1940 began the evacuation of thousands of British and French troops from the French port of Dunkirk. Reg remembers vividly. "Two or three hundred came to us, straight off the beaches. There was every regiment under the sun. When I first saw them my heart nearly dropped. I'd never seen such ragamuffin people in all my life! Some of them were still wet from coming off the beaches!" From then on "Things began to get serious. We were ready for invasion."

Reg had several postings along the east coast and then was sent to India to prepare for fighting in Burma. Before he left, Reg and Winnie were married in Christchurch Dore on the 30 th April 1942. They were not to see each other again for nearly four years! Winnie joined the Land Army working hard at Moorside Farm, Long Line to help feed the nation.

After the war Reg and Winnie, like many young couples, had to live with Winnie's parents at 3 Wilson Hill (top of Savage Lane) until a house came up on Devonshire Terrace Road, where Reg still lives. He resumed his horticultural career at Wagwood House, Newfield Lane where he became head gardener and remained for over thirty years. He was responsible for planting the rhododendrons and azaleas along with the thousands of bulbs which produced such a wonderful display when Wagwood House held its annual Spring Open Day. Reg reports that Gillian, the daughter of the owners Mr and Mrs Taudevin used to say "It's not a house with a garden, it's a garden with a house!"

Reg's expertise soon got him involved with the Fellowship of the Services Shows at Ringinglow and ploughing match shows at Totley. When Dore Show was starting up he was asked to organise the schedule and judge the vegetable entries. He served on the committee for many years and donated the Skelton Cup for the best overall winner. He is a highly respected show judge throughout the South Yorkshire area.

Besides Winnie and gardening the other love in Reg's life has been singing. He is a founder member of the Dore Male Voice Choir and still sings as a second tenor. Reg explains "About six or eight of us got together in the Fellowship. We used to practice and pay seven shillings a week for a back room at the church hall. Reg Monks was a tenor, John Walker a bass and Roy Green played the piano." By the time the group had grown to over fourteen members Brian Jarvis had found a conductor from Felling and the Dore Male Voice Choir was born in 1964.

Throughout the 65 years that he has lived in the village Reg has known many of its legendary characters, such as Frankie Fisher, herdsman at Frith's Croft House Farm who slept over the cows and drank halves in the Hare and Hounds. He remembers with affection Sammy and Billy Thorpe, Oliver Gill coalman, Mr. Mace postmaster, Mrs Mace's brother, little Stanley Unwin and, of course, Frank Clarke, landlord and benefactor and has tales to tell about them all. He can entertain the ladies of the lunch club with his warm and humorous reminiscences of people they all knew well or he can captivate a group of youngsters at Dore Primary School with his vivid memories of war.

Reg can cheer us up on a dull day with the sight of the bright yellow stars of his winter jasmine and colourful pansies grown from his own seed or surprise us in the summer with the vibrant display of his hanging baskets and window boxes. But then, he does know a bit about gardening!!.

Maureen Cope

Dore Oral History Group

Letters (Memories stirred)

Dear Sir,

I started at Dore School in 1950 traveling to the village by bus from Whirlow. The fare cost ld. and all the bus conductors knew out names. I only ever remember being taken by my mother once and after that I just went up to the bus stop by myself and got on the bus with several other children. It is hard to believe that I ever did it all by myself but we were always quite safe.

When I started at the school Mr. Clark was the headmaster and he had a desk in the corner of Miss Palmer's classroom with a screen around it. The infant teachers were Mrs Crawshaw and Mrs Wilkes. Mrs Crawshaw lived beside the green and the children used to go down to her house to call for her. She never seemed to mind but I am sure it must have been very frustrating for her. Once I was in the junior school I was taught by Mss Palmer for two years and by Miss Davies for the next two years. Many pupils were frightened of Miss Palmer because she had a loud voice and was strict but I always got on very well with her. (My first encounter with her was in Woolworths in Belfast just before I started school would you believe.)

I think I was probably in junior 2 of junior 3 when Mr Clark retired and Mr Wright came as Head. He lived at the bottom of Long Line and when he arrived the office upstairs was created for him. I remember often helping him at lunchtime to do jobs and I also remember going up to the shop at lunchtime to fetch a loaf of bread for Miss Palmer.

The school must have grown because when I was in Junior 4 the older pupils moved up to the church hall with Miss Davies. We all had large cardboard boxes, which we covered with wallpaper, because there were no desks, only tables. The boxes were stored under the stage and every morning we would get out our box and have it beside our chair. I also remember that when I took the 11+ the rest of the school had a holiday.

I hated school dinners, but they were served to us by Mrs Cook and Mrs Green who knew us all by name. They operated out of the cloakroom and everywhere smelt of mashed potato.

This autumn I returned to Dore from Alcester, Warwickshire to a reunion of Girl Guides and met many of the girls I was at school with. This set us all reminiscing. People had traveled from as far away as Germany, North Yorkshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire and I think there was as much talk about school as about Girl Guides. They were happy days.

Margaret Moore (nee Coppock)

Dear Sir,

Re your article you published Winter copy, ie. Mr Glen Walker, Teacher, Greenhill Village school circa 1950.

I have many happy and painful memories of Mr Walker. I was in his class 1953/54. I sat next to Tony Ridgeway, in class and we still keep in touch.

I lived at Rose Cottage in the village in the 50's. Memories of village life in the 50's are still very clear. School friends, Ian Aldus, Roy Kilner, Thorpe, Fisher, Shaw, Adlington, Crassick, Poole and many more. The village shops, ie chemist, butcher, the chippy, paper shop on the corner, the grocer.

School memories. Waiting for the bus to take us to Bradway for football, praying that it didn't rain. Football matches in the playground between estaters v. commoners. Happy Days. Too many memories to write about, but all happy ones.

Michael Burnell

Dear Sir,

During World War II, I can well remember, my two brothers and I slept in a Morrison shelter, a cage-like metal box in the centre of the living room. Beside the shelter was a cupboard containing, amongst other things, the week's ration of sugar for the family. Being sugar lumps these were irresistible. That packet of sugar grew smaller every night, almost imperceptibly diminishing until it was no longer possible to take more without it became glaringly obvious that something was happening. It is just possible that this is happening in Newfield Lane and other parts of Dore under our very noses !

A straight line started to appear on the bank-side of the Lane on Monday 10 th January but one could dismiss it as accidental. During that week the line grew in width to half a metre, and in some places a full metre beyond the tarmac, and the bank started to show a distinct edge. Tyre marks from one or more lorries were obvious but what heavy lorry would choose to drive 40 or 50 metres in a straight line with the risk of hitting overhanging branches? By the beginning of the next week (17 th January) lorry or tractor tyres had cut further into the bank, as well as digging 'accidental' deep trenches on the other side of the road in the leafy verge.

Within 10 or so days the Lane has been transformed. Trees could disappear overnight, too. Developers would only have to pay a fine. It is as though someone interested in the development of Long Acres and the transformation of the Lane into a busy highway (which would include cutting through the bank to access the new development) has been eating Mum's sugar lumps !

Neither traffic cones nor warnings of dangerous new soft verges have appeared. Nevertheless, it looks horrendously like someone is interested in widening and straightening the Lane before the Planning Inspectorate gets to see it, and also ensuring that the Lane needs re-surfacing and re-planning !

It is not a coincidence that a For Sale sign appeared for Plot 6 in Long Acres around 19 th January. We hope that other local residents, walkers and drivers will report to Sheffield Council anything they see that is unusual and that might be illegal. Vehicle registration numbers could clinch it. Meanwhile, Sheffield Council should consider a clear unambiguous conservation order which might protect the Lane until its future is definitely decided. This notice would need to be posted in Newfield Lane without delay.

David Andrews

Dear Sir,

My interest is in tracing my family tree, a hobby that has grown in interest thanks to recent television programmes. I too am a recent convert, although I have to say that it was due to a request from my uncle and not the aforementioned programme, although it did help.

I have only just started on this particular line of my family, which eventually took me to your village of Dore. As I was browsing around on the internet I came across your website and thought it would be a good place to get a feel for the place and possibly some historical items too.

You can only imagine my joy at almost immediately coming across the family name I was searching for on your time line for the village. A joy that was just as quickly wiped from my face as I realised that my family ancestor was mentioned not for some great deed that she had done but rather a mis-deed. I am speaking of Eliza Flint who as you will know was expelled from the local school for breaking windows, swearing, breaking into school, lying and stealing in 1883 at the grand age of 10 years old. A deed then made even worse when her Mother ( Sarah ) tried to defend her daughters actions instead of punishing her. I don't know why but I have this feeling that I should apologise for my ancestors behaviour, which of course I do unreservedly.

My direct ancestor was Eliza's older brother by four years a Joseph Walter Flint who went on to become a grinder living at Heeley where he was married in January 1892. In a pathetic attempt to try and restore the balance of the Flint families good name I have found on the 1871 census Eliza's older brother by 18 years a person called "John Flint". On the 1871 census he is 16 years of age and is down as a pastor by occupation, I presume in your local church. Although by the time of Eliza's misdemeanour he had left home, perhaps she missed his calming influence.

In the article the Flint family is quoted as living on School Green Road in the 1891 census, I have found that they were living at the same address in the 1881 census although in 1871 they were all living on Townhead Road with Eliza's Grandfather a "John Flint". No doubt his Grandson the Pastor was named after his Grandfather.

I would just like to finish by thanking you for the information about my family from your website and hope you have a successful future. Any information all adds to the overall picture of the family even if it's news yo''d rather not have heard. I can only say that the Flint family as I know it would be totally horrified to hear the news and I have not yet decided that I should tell them. Sometime during the Spring I shall be making a little trip up to your village so if anybody notices a stranger wondering, apparently aimlessly, around taking photographs of nothing in particular it may well be me.

If anybody has any more information that they think I may find useful then they could contact me by e-mail on stephen@cox-wroe.fsnet.co.uk. (lower case letters). Any information would be a great help and thank you all once again, see you in the Spring maybe.

Stephen Cox

Ed. We have been able to provide the information published in the Society's "A to W" of Dore, but perhaps other readers can add to this. If you don't have access to the internet we would be happy to pass on any written response

The railway navvies

Ed. Unfortunately we do not have space to run the second part of our article on railway navvies in this issue. We will try and fit it in next time. In the meantime it did generate the following interesting correspondence:

Dear Sir,

Your article in the winter issue about railway navvies brought to my mind a little ditty which my Grandma used to sing to my brother and myself when we were small. She was born in 1881, so railway building would be obviously happening in her young lifetime. The song went:-

I'm a little navvy, working on the line,

Four and twenty hours, I've been doing overtime,

Roast beef, roast pork, pudding made of egg,

Yes, I'm a little navvy with a wooden leg!"

It seems to sum up the basics of their working lives quite succinctly.

Pauline Bell

Dear Sir,

With reference to your interesting article about memories, you may interested in the following.

My maternal grandfather William Nicholson Liaithwaite, started out as a miner in a pit in Whitehaven, Cumberland, which ran under the sea - his job dealing with inflows of water into the galleries. Apparently around 1895 word went out that they were having trouble from water running into the working of the future Totley tunnel. So he and some of his mates did as you mentioned - tools on their backs walked down to Grindleford. (I still have his stubbing axe).

Now he needed lodgings - my grandmother with 3 teenagers, and a widow to boot - needed someone to help pay the bills. So they married, walking to Sheffield (Old) Town Hall to do the job. All the three were put to service, but there were 4 girls of this marriage, Frances, Margaret, Mabel and Gladys. How they managed, God only knows.

They lived in a little cottage near the top of the village, opposite a large store. It was Hancocks, then Peak Chemists. The cottage is now demolished. It had 2 small bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a coalhouse. My mother Frances used to say that the first up got a matching set of clothes. Incidentally, though my mother assures me that I was named after her step-brother Frank, I soon learned to fight those who jeered at me for being called after my mother.

When William had finished his work on the railway he went to work on the Derwent Dams and on the quarries just through the Surprise View. Of course, by the time I was old enough to appreciate Bill as he was called by everyone, he was a local odd job man and as I got old enough I used to help him. You'll notice that the road verges from Toads Mouth to the Surprise are bounded by a line of stones. We laid the originals. It was my job to scour the area for stones for him to shape and lay. There isn't a dry stone wall in the Stanage Burbage area that I haven't worked on with him.

They were extremely poor - so poor that when they couldn't afford meat they had to make do with rabbit, grouse, pheasant, or trout. I learned at a very early age how to knock down a rabbit with a catapult or to tickle the wild trout. He also taught me a misc of country lore. I became the "eddicated" one, but his teaching was more valuable to me than any college learning when I became a bricker, and invaluable when I was conscripted into the army. Now, whilst I wait for my 88 th birthday to come up and curse my arthritis, I can't help but think of old Bill.

Francis Smith