A Selection of Monologues by Sheila Thomas

This engaging project draws on Sheila Thomas and her family’s memories of life in Sheffield, when steelmaking was a thriving industry in the city. Her narratives are illustrated by photographs from her childhood.

We were rich………. a collection of monologues depicting life in a Sheffield steelworker’s family in the 1960’s.

Introduction

We were rich……….

Sheila Thomas (nee Bates) grew up in a steelworking family in the 1960’s in Page Hall.  Her father worked as a moulder from the age of 14 at British Steel and Jonas and Colver.  She went to Owler Lane, Grimesthorpe and Firth Park Schools and is now an academic and writer.

She has written a series of monologues which capture life in Page Hall during her childhood.  These will be published next year.

Here are a selection, hand-picked for the Cradle of Fire Project.

Cathy aged 11

My favourite time of day is when the school bell goes at 4 o’clock and we can all go back home along Grimesthorpe Road, play for a bit on the wasteland and then down the hill to Page Hall.  It sounds a though I don’t like school when I say how much I enjoyed hearing the bell ring but actually, I love it.  I even love the blackness of it…..the way the big old buildings are covered in soot from the steelworks, makes it stand out against the sky  I love the way the playground is on a really steep slope that we can slide down in Winter and the markings for the hopscotch and the rounders pitch.  Me and my friends usually end up doing handstand races in our breaks against the walls……it can give you a bit of a headache though after about ten minutes.

I especially love Mrs Haresign, who took our class in 1st year.  I remember how my Mum had to write a big long letter to her and the Headmaster asking for specially permission so I could go to my brother’s university graduation in Aberdeen (which is absolutely miles away).  I was off school from Wednesday to Friday and I had to promise to catch up on everything I would miss and work really hard when I came back.  Going on holiday trips in school time NEVER happens, that’s why they give us 6 weeks off in the Summer, but the Headmaster, Mr Askham said this was a special reason and he said that one day I might even go to university as well!  I don’t know about that…..I know you have to be very clever for that.

Anyway, the other reason I like hearing the school bell is that an hour after I get home from school, I am off to dancing class.  It’s great, we all stand in lines and follow what our dance teacher tells us while our Mums sit on the benches in the church hall and knit and smoke Woodbines and make cups of tea.  Sometimes the dance teacher, Miss Davies asks one of the Mums for a cigarette when she runs out.  Sometimes she gets cross when don’t try our best and she says “Well, you are wasting my time, your energy and your mother’s money.”  I always try my best though cause I just love it.  I want to be Margot Fonteyn when I grow up…..she’s lovely.  I read about her and Rudolf  something or other in my ballet annuals at Christmas and last year I saw her dance on our new telly…….it was magic.

Betty aged 45

We haven’t got a bathroom or an inside toilet like we had in the prefab that we used to live in but I actually like it here much better.  There’s not much space in our little terrace but we manage fine.  Having a cellar is good as the coalman delivers the loads straight into there and we have a stone table down there where we can keep things cool, as well as a few shelves at the top of the cellar steps which we can use as a pantry.  There’s a yard that we all share and a little garden made of stones piled up with a lilac tree and some nasturtiums…..nobody ever looks after it but it always seems to look fine…..the plants get watered with all the rain!

Our neighbours here are lovely……our Cathy calls them all Aunties and Uncles even though they are not really family.  When I brought Cathy home from the hospital as a baby, they all came round to see her and I had no end of knitted bootees and cardigans!  She still goes in to visit the neighbours now for an hour or so and they are pleased to see her.  I help Becky our other neighbour with her 2 young girls when she is worried about what to do when they are not very well.  Becky’s only young but I have seen most of the things that can go wrong with kiddies like German Measles and proper Measles.  If it gets serious we have a marvellous doctor who come out and knows all our families.  He came out to see Mrs Thorne the other night when she took poorly….mind you she’s got 7 kids and a husband who’s a Communist in a house the size of ours, so there’s no wonder she is often not well.  She’s my best friend though…we’ve helped each other for years.  Her youngest kept running out of school and coming home cause he didn’t like it.  I don’t know how many times she took him back…..she’s got the patience of Job that woman…..

We pay our rent to the Duke of Norfolk who owns these houses, not that he’s ever been here, but for all his money, I don’t think he’s any better off than we are.  When people look at us in the future they‘ll probably think how poor we were……but they will have it all wrong……..we were rich. 

Brian aged 47

I never really wanted to do anything else…working in a steel foundry…..it’s what men do round here…that or working on the railways.  It’s a good steady job and the blokes I work are all the same as me….we‘ve all been doing this since we were 14 years old.  We all enjoy a drink and a smoke when we’ve finished our shift and then we go home to a bath in a tin bath in front of the fire…….luxury!  It’s a hard life and a mucky one when you are pouring red hot steel into moulds all day and all night some weeks but I’m happy.  My wife says she wants better for our lad.  She ‘s set on him going to the grammar school but I don’t want him getting any fancy ideas ….there’s a lot to be said for having a clean home, good neighbours and folk that’ll help you out if you need owt, just like you’d do for them.

It’s not all furnaces and soot……we have a grand time too.  We have two weeks holiday every summer and we all go in a caravan to somewhere on the east coast…..Brid or Skeggy usually, sometimes Scarborough (so I can watch a bit of Yorkshire cricket) and it’s great seeing the kiddies enjoying themselves on the beach.  We generally have a jug of tea and take some sandwiches, then it will be an ice cream and fish and chips for tea……smashing.

Then there’s parades up to Firth Park every Whitsun when all the churches walk up with their banners and they crown the May Queen and we sing hymns together, but the best time is Bonfire Night when the lads round here go collecting old wood for the bonfire, the kids make a guy and go out in the street asking folk “Have you got a penny for the guy, Mister?” and the women make parkin and somebody nips to Mr Stephenson’s sweet shop for some bonfire toffee….We set the bonfire going in the yard, light some fireworks and the kids run round with sparklers…..nobody can ever get the Catherine Wheels to light…….but it’s brilliant. I love it.  It reminds me of the steelworks………the glowing fire, the sheer power of it and wiping your eyes cause of the smoke……makes you feel glad that this is where you live……

Thank you Sheila for your kind contribution to the Cradle of Fire Project.

Perhaps you too have some memories that you’d like to share to enrich the story further – feel free to reach out via the Cradle of Fire contact page.