Crookes, Crookes

Image: © Dave Hitchborne Taken: 26 Aug 2008

I remember a time when there wasn't a lean-to here and the doorway was a mirror of the one on the left. It was built in the '50s and back then it was metal, rather than asbestos and painted black. The other must have rusted away. It was handy to climb on to retrieve tennis balls out of the gutter, not that there is a gutter on the extension now. It's remains are lying on top of the lean-to. As a child, I often wondered what the shopkeeper used the lean-to for, but never asked. The shop is A & K - Butcher’s Shop. It was Peat's back then and next door was Melias - Fruit & Veg, which later became Joe Winter & Son - Plumber and Building Contractor. The next property on is F.A.B.L.E. - Charity Shop, which used to be the Sheffield Savings Bank. The bank had a nine-roomed flat and this is where I lived with my parents. At the other side of us was a Bakers and Confectioners. Very handy, but we never monopolised them because they hosted cockroaches, which occasionally came through to the flat. They had a dough mixer, which droned on for hours sometimes. I don't know where they had the ovens, but they didn't keep our flat warm. Every winter our bath, wash hand basin and toilet froze solid.

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