A Wincobank Lad

Ann Beedham’s father Jack started work in the Sheffield steel plants in 1936, aged 14, and is featured in a Sheffield Star book ‘100 Years of Stainless Steel‘, edited by Nancy Fielder (2013).

The book was designed by Ann, who worked as a graphic artist at The Star. Ann’s song ‘Wincobank Lad‘ tells Jack’s life story and that of her mother, Frances, who was a file cutter. You can hear Ann singing it herself on the audio recording posted below.

Jack took Ann to a plant using arc furnaces when she was a little girl. He recounts in the Sheffield Star book how the electrodes “growled like monsters” when they hit the cold steel and how Ann described it at the time as “like being in hell”.

Jack Beedham, from age 14 a steel plant worker in Sheffield – a ‘Wincobank lad’ – photo taken at English Steel, 1940s courtesy of Ann Beedham

The song , ‘ Wincobank Lad‘, also makes reference to a superstitious belief in the Darwin steelworks, where there were “lots of cats running around“. Jack said one man swore they were dead steelworkers ‘come back’ and would say, “Look at that one, it’s the spitting image of so-and-so”.

Has anyone else heard this story – or a similar one? We’d love to hear from you if you have, or perhaps you have some photographs, artefacts, souvenirs or other songs from or about those days that you might share?

Jack Beedham at home with a Sheffield Star book 100 Years of Stainless Steel, edited by Nancy Fielder (2013). Photo by Ann Beedham.

Blog by Carolyn Waudby