IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Stothard Road, SHEFFIELD, S10 1RD

There is a gap in the terraced housing. Where the next house in the row used to be was the first house my mother and father rented. I was three at the time. We spent one of the worst winters in living memory in that house at no.56 In total, six houses were demolished and one bungalow was built in their place.

The infield of this famous cricket ground was the yard. The outfield was anywhere out the yard, especially over the rooftops. The boundary was the tram tracks. The wickets, now faded away, were chalk marks once drawn on the brickwork to the right of this former garage. The match was declared over at teatime, dark or when a tram cut the ball in half. If the latter happened early on, the game reverted to hide & seek, marbles, or tig. For a wider view of the ground http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1234094#form

Horse & Rider - equestrian products, is the former Sheffield & Ecclesall Co-op. It was one of those Co-ops that had a cash office at the far end of the shop. The shop assistant would put your money in a metal container, pull a rope and the container would run along a wire to the cash office. Seconds later your change came back along the wire and the shop assistant would retrieve it and give it to you. You could join the Co-op and get dividend points. When the points were worth a fair amount you could cash them in for money off your purchases. Everyone who joined was given a unique number. My mother's was 72829.

At the age of seven, way back in 1949, when I lived here above the former Sheffield Savings Bank http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1232062 this was a little known, but World Class cricket ground. From 1949 to the early ‘50s, many test matches were played here and many a sixer was belted out of the boundary only to fall foul of the dreaded tramcar wheels on the main road. The wickets were scrawled in chalk on the right–hand corner of the then garage. It can be seen here though that the garage doors have been removed and the garage turned into an outbuilding. Remarkably, only one window was ever broken and that was due to substituting the rubber ball for a golf ball. I dread to think what the result would have been if it had connected with the bowler’s head. Back then, the ground seemed so big and it was certainly in better condition. There were no Wheelie bins, only a bin for the waste bits of meat from Peat’s butchers shop. At times there was a bit of a hum from the bin, but on cold days it wasn’t too bad. The corrugated sheeting of the add–on was painted black back then and the building was a handy leg–up when the ball got lodged in the guttering. Similarly, an outside toilet that was to the right and at the back of the fence was useful for access to the upstairs kitchen window when I came home from school and no one was in.

These two shops are on what is the start of Northfield Road. The road drops down from Crookes to Walkley. The Horse & Rider is a former Co-op.

A block of shops that contains the former Sheffield Savings Bank and nine-roomed flat where I used to live with my parents many years ago. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1226951 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1232062 Previously to that we lived in a house up this road to the right - 56 Bolehill Lane, which has since been demolished. I saw the winter of '47 in that house, when the snow drifted above the height of the back door. As a family, we didn't live on a diet of fish & chips, but many's the time I've been in this chip shop.

The road faces westwards – From 2nd September 1967 to 4th January 1974, I lived in a house on the brow of the hill and after a late–shift on a cold windy winter’s night, walking around the corner from getting off a moderately warm bus around 00:30 – this road was like the road to the frozen north. The cold prevailing wind would freeze my face numb before I got anywhere near home. On early morning shifts, walking down the road at 03:40 to catch the staff bus, it was no better. In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, when I was a young lad, I used to go to work on my bike. Home back then was through the entrance to the right. So after work I would belt off home as fast as I could and then turn left off the main road, then a quick sharp right and hurtle into the yard as fast as I could make it, day after day after day. One day there was a car parked at the entrance and I slammed into it, like an idiot. The bloke in the car just wound down the window and told me to be more careful!

The rear entrance to the properties 235-239 Crookes. Unusually, the houses on Toftwood Road, at left, start at number six. The two houses in the distance are on Bolehill Lane.

Carrack's - Paint Merchants, at the corner of Stothard Road. They've been here for years. Fifty at least.