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The Manor


POPPYCHRISTINA

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I tried to watch these about 6 months ago but the video kept stopping and buffering, too frustrating to watch. I saw your post and tried again, this time they played right through without stopping (perhaps because it was near midnight and I have bonus offpeak data?) Anyway, thank you for the reminder, it was well worth the wait.

I really have no right to comment on what I saw in the video's since I haven't lived in England for 37 years but I couldn't help a feeling of sadness to see the houses being demolished. Were they just past their use-by date, were they worn out, crumbling, damp, innefficient? I suppose they can house 10 times the number of people in the same area by building hi-rise. Is that what has happened on the Manor? Or was it a social problem, and the planners reasoned by sweeping away the houses they would sweep away the problem? They didn't look too different to the houses in Hackenthorpe where I grew up and they are still there.

Would be interested to hear any comment.

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Yes I was there when they filmed it. I would even had appeared in it. They filmed a meeting of activists, TA reps and Council workers, trying to solve the problems. But it got edited out. :angry:

Of course all the houses got pulled down, even the ones not getting pulled down in the film. The red brick ones had somekind of structual fault. The rest were got rid of because the government gave the council a MASSIVE grant to do so. Large areas are now just green fields. The rest built on by housing trusts and the like, with weird letting policies that filled them with people you wouldn't want as a neighbours. And helping to create the 'ten kids to every adult' estates we hear about. So many transfered off the estate, letting on people who wouldn't be given a new house by the Council ie: those featured in Sun stories of the Manor. Or there's the really new bits, built with private houses, where even in the summer holidays and a nice day, you can walk around without seeing any kids or anybody come to that, well it was like that about 5 years ago.

Many of the people featured in the film were on the tennants associations. There were two TA's, one for Upper Manor and one for Lower Manor. A friend of mine involved with the Upper one, used to call the meetings when both got together "the gathering of the clans". The most powerful person on the estate was Betty Houlden, leader of the Upper TA. Though she had a finger in most things on the Manor, she features early on in the film. She had a heart of gold, in that if anyone on the estate had a big problem or small, she would do her best to sort it out. For this reason and her powerfull presence, plain talking which comes out in the film, she put the fear of god into many council workers of any department. I was even told that anybody who worked in 'any' council department who failed on the Manor, might as well give up on a career with Sheffield Council. Yes it was all down to Betty! I even think the Council used it as a testing ground for workers, while she was alive.

After her death the Manor community sprit, among activists and workers, was never the same. Ironic really as she was NOT a "Mannor Lass". As she was born in Attercliffe.

At the time many Manor people were very unhappy about the film and the "bad" image it gave to the estate. But Yorkshire TV's coverage was never as bad as the way the Star treated Manor. And I can tell you the one thing Betty hated more than the Tory government was Star journalists.

One of them on the film also got the council to build them the most expensive bird house Sheffield Council ever built lol

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I found this video very moving, to knock down a well loved estate was terrible as I lived on the Manor from 1943 to 1965 at 123 Harborough Avenue. I knew Tom Ismay not the man in the video but his son, he went to St theresas school when I was there but I dont think they moved onto the Manot tilll around 1956/7. The Lady who claimed she got stuck in the bath because the paint was still wet is bit of a lie as all the baths in the houses were enamelled cast iron and not painted.

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