Dore to Door internet edition

Local history - Winter 2003

Dore Old School - Hilda’s story - Letters - Jean recalls - Alice May Crossland

Dore Old School

Following the successful production of The A to W of Dore, plans are going ahead to publish the story of Dore Old School, from its origins in the 18th century until its closure in 1965.

For the early years all sorts of archives will be used. 20th-century source materials will include the historical notes of Irvin Wright, the last headmaster, and the excellent articles in Dore to Door by Hazel Hoffman, with the postscript by Glen Fallows.

When we come to the schooldays of people still living in Dore, we want to draw on their memories too. Some of these were written for the 1999 exhibition on the history of the Old School, an event in the Millennium project to extend and refurbish it. Many others have since been added through the recordings with the Oral History Group. So this book should be a real people's history.

We should like to use a selection of photographs of the Old School and its activities. Although several people have kindly supplied photos to us already, we feel we could do with some more to choose from, particularly from the last 25 years of the school up to 1965. We will copy and return them. So if you have any suitable photos that are not already in the DVS Collection, please contact Maureen Cope (235 0392), the picture editor, or me John Dunstan (236 5720), as I will be writing the book.

Maureen would also be delighted to hear from you if you have memories for the Oral History Group to record, of the Old School or indeed any other Dore subject.

John Dunstan

Hilda’s story

From the Dore Oral History Collection. In conversation with Hilda Warnes (née Taylor)

Hilda was born at Rose Cottage, High Street, Dore, on 2nd December 1910. Her parents were Harry Taylor and Mary Fisher. The youngest of seven children she had four sisters Doris, Ivy, Ada and Jane and two brothers Godfrey and Harry. Her father worked as a scythe back maker in Rockingham Street, Sheffield and then as a gardener in Cavendish Avenue. Hilda and her sister Ada will be remembered by generations of pupils and teachers at Dore School where for thirty-four years they were dinner ladies.

Now aged 93 years, Hilda can recall characters and events that were part of her childhood in Dore. She remembers when fairs were held at the back of Rose Cottage (now the Devonshire Arms car park) where the local lads were offered five shillings to fight a burley boxer in an open-air booth. There were horse shows in the village and horse racing on the recreation ground.

Hilda remembers the gymnasium on Townhead Road "a great big wooden place" where all the lads used to go. This was before the Choral Hall, later the Church Hall, was built. A magic lantern concert was held once a week at the British Legion (now Dore Club) presented by George Bowes (Lorraine Evans’ father) and it was a good night for the whole family.

Many travelling salesmen frequented Dore Village in Hilda’s younger days. One such character was Mr Baggy from whom Hilda bought a bowler hat for tuppence for her father. During the Great War Mr O’Neil from Hunters Bar would arrive to mend umbrellas and brought with him song and hymn sheets. A man used to come with ‘pots’ from Sheffield, as there was no hardware shop in the village and Mr Shipstone would collect parcels with his horse and cart.

Hilda has vivid memories of Shrove Tuesday when Mrs Farnsworth, Mrs Gill, Mrs Fletcher and many other ladies "used to make a lovely tea" for the children. Following this would be a concert where Johnny Stones, the blacksmith, Edwin Parker and Nellie Flint would sing as Tilly Farnsworth played the piano.

A sadder memory is of contracting scarlet fever and together with Fred Swift and Hattie Taylor spending seven weeks in Dronfield Fever Hospital. Hilda recalls, "In those days they used to come on a horse and coach and the nurse used to come out of the coach, pop us in with the red blanket and away we went."

Schooldays were mainly happy with Miss Dobbs and Miss Hopkin although Hilda admits that Miss Palmer "could be nasty" and Mr Bones used to "hit us terrible". Some of the lads once cut the pedals on the headmaster’s harmonium and Hilda laughs "we nearly all got stick through that." But the children had lots of fun especially when it snowed, sledging from the Devonshire Arms straight down Bushy Wood.

When Hilda was young there were very few shops in Dore Village. She remembers particularly Sam Thorpe’s butchers shop, Woody Turver’s grocery and Mr Watchhorne’s bakery where bread was baked for her mother for tuppence a loaf.

Mr and Mrs Wildeman kept the Hare and Hounds and sent apples and oranges to the children in the Fever Hospital. They were followed by Mr Hirst and then the legendary Frank and Margaret Clarke. Old Mr Bill Thorpe and his wife kept the Devonshire Arms.

Hilda married in 1929 when she was nineteen years old and came to live at Barkers Row, Townhead Road where she has been for nearly seventy-three years. She and her husband Frank celebrated sixty-one years together.

Looking out of her cottage window Hilda describes the lovely plantation owned by Mr Bottomley that used to be across the road. She remembers other residents of Barkers Row like the Taylor family whose eleven children all played in Dore Brass Band. From chapel she recalls Miss Constantine who was very religious, "She frightened us to death; she used to say the world was coming to an end and we’re still here" Hilda chuckles. And through the autumn twilight the ghost of Mr Bingham, the lamplighter, reaches towards the gas lamps on Townhead Road.

Maureen Cope

Letters

Dear Sir,

In your Autumn 2003 issue Sue Woodcock writes about her Wilkinson ancestors in Dore. I’ll pass on what I know about them in case she can fill some gaps.

Sue’s great - great - grandfather, Joseph Wilkinson, watchmaker and shopkeeper, was living at 'Ashfurlong Cottage' on 2 April 1871. He doesn’t appear in the 1861 census, so must have moved to Dore in the meantime. In 1871 he was employing three men, so he couldn’t have retired by then.

Joseph, aged 49, had been born in Sheffield, whereas his wife Mary Ann, 53, came from Bradwell. His parents, Joseph, 81, born in Doncaster, and Elizabeth, 78, also from Sheffield, were certainly living with Joseph junior in 1871. The family must have been quite well off, because they had a live- in servant, Margaret Alison, 17. When the census man called, they were entertaining a visitor from Sevenoaks, Miss Ellen Maria Pots, a French and music teacher.

Sue Woodcock mentions the deaths of Joseph senior and Elizabeth in 1873 and 1874. By 3 April 1881 Mary Ann has also disappeared from the scene, though Joseph junior is recorded as married, not as widower. What lies behind that? He has a housekeeper, Caroline Matilda Fowler, and a 19-year- old servant, Maria Sykes, a neighbour’s daughter. This census calls the Ashfurlong area Dore Fields, though the Wilkinson residence had certainly been known as Ashfurlong Cottage a couple of years earlier.

I’m not sure where in the Ashfurlong hamlet Ashfurlong Cottage was, but as the family sounds fairly substantial in 1871, perhaps it was the largest house there, a former farmhouse. Maybe the deeds would throw up some evidence.

I have some good news for Sue, however, from the Derbyshire Record Office, New Street, Matlock (tel. 01629 585347). She can see there a copy of the will of Joseph Wilkinson of Sheffield and Dore, proved in 1885.

John Dunstan

Jean recalls

Posters up and down the country tell us that 59% of the population are in favour of hunting. Whilst admitting that the hunt in full cry is a spectacular sight, my heart lies with the poor fox. Years ago we all used to flock to the Crown Inn to witness the hunt turn out and flew around the district on foot like maniacs. The late comedian Jimmy Edwards, a keen huntsman in his day, turned out with the hunt from the Crown and there used to be a photograph of the event in the pub. Boxing Day was another occasion when we turned out to watch, the frosty air giving everyone an appetite for cold turkey.

When I was a child the older generation in Dore were really superstitious, even the noble snowdrop being taboo. You never replanted a Christmas tree in your garden. That spelt disaster. You didn’t pick blackberries after November 5th as they then had the mark of the devil on them. This year, though you’d be lucky to find any as late as that, as they seem to have had a very short life, what with the lack of rain and the warmth. Likewise sprouts were marked with the sign of the cross because Old Nick may have touched them. In the rest of the country you cut the bottom of the sprout to enable them to cook better, but not in Dore.

Until the 50's women who had given birth were barred from visiting houses until they had been churched. They were considered unclean. No such charge regarding men! How barbaric. I can’t imagine where that thinking came from.

Jean Dean

Alice May Crossland

Following her request for information in our summer issue, Primrose Lockwood has now been able to pull together more information on Alice Crossland Nee Blyton.

Alice May Crossland, known as May, lived at 10 Meadway Drive, Dore, from the 1940s to her death in 1962.

She was a music teacher and rented a studio at Wilson Peck, during the 40s, 50s and 60s. A neighbour described her as friendly and having a whimsical sense of humour. May had a piano at home, even though she did not teach from there, and apologised to neighbours after playing scales, saying she hoped she had not disturbed them.

Alice May Crossland was born Alice May Blyton on 14th April, 1878, at Asline Road, Sheffield. She was the youngest child of Mary Ann (nee Hanly) and Thomas Carey Blyton, who came to Sheffield, from Kent, sometime during the 1870s. Thomas worked as a draper’s buyer. Later the family moved from Asline Road to Aizelwood Road, and finally to Machon Bank. In the 1895 White’s Directory, there is a listing for Miss M. Blyton at Machon Bank as a pianoforte teacher.

May’s older brother, Thomas Carey Blyton junior, born 1870, worked as a mercantile clerk. In 1896 he married Theresa Harrison of Sheffield. They went to live in Kent and later had three children, Enid, Hanly and Carey. Enid became the children’s writer, Enid Blyton.

According to Enid’s biographer, Barbara Stoney, Thomas Carey junior believed his daughter resembled her aunt May and possessed a similar musical talent. He hoped she would become a musician. However Enid preferred writing.

Hanly’s son, Carey, became a composer, arranger, music editor and lecturer. Carey wrote in a letter to me, " ... after 1 had taken up piano at the age of 16, she [May] gave me several volumes of music - the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, the complete Chopin mazurkas, etc." Many years later Carey’s book of nonsense songs for children, "Bananas in Pyjamas" made his name widely known.

Alice May married Charles Needham Crossland, a steel works’ representative. There were no children.

I became interested in May Crossland while researching Enid Blyton. During this time I had several letters from Carey Blyton who shared things about his great aunt. A neighbour and former neighbour of May, from Meadway Drive, have also been very helpful.

Primrose Lockwood