John Banners Department Store - Attercliffe Road

[Guest lyndloo]

My mother use to take me and my sisters for our Whitson tide clothes [once a year rig-out.]

Most families used Banners cheques, just another way of paying weekly.

Blanchards did a similar thing

This is a painting of old Banners done by my brother.

I love your painting ... and do you remember Burgesses Mens shop next door? I worked there bak in 63! :rolleyes:

[beemerchez]

J Banners, 28th of Sept: 2010

[DaveH]

A decade or two back the top floor of this building (BANNERS) was converted into "THE SHEFFIELD BLITZ MUSEUM" and contained a wealth of mainly loaned and donated items from local people from the days of the Sheffield Blitz.

Then the museum suddenly closed and where the stuff went nobody seems to know, it's a real mystery.

The top floor then became what laughingly became known as an "antiques bazaar" but it was really complete sets of house clearance goods

[Guest transit]

A decade or two back the top floor of this building (BANNERS) was converted into "THE SHEFFIELD BLITZ MUSEUM" and contained a wealth of mainly loaned and donated items from local people from the days of the Sheffield Blitz.

Then the museum suddenly closed and where the stuff went nobody seems to know, it's a real mystery.

The top floor then became what laughingly became known as an "antiques bazaar" but it was really complete sets of house clearance goods

....most of the stuff used in the Sheffield Blitz display , is now housed and on display at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum in Doncaster (near the Keepmoat Stadium / Lakeside, M18, jnc 3)

Details here....

http://www.aeroventure.org.uk/index.php

[DaveH]

....most of the stuff used in the Sheffield Blitz display , is now housed and on display at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum in Doncaster (near the Keepmoat Stadium / Lakeside, M18, jnc 3)

Details here....

http://www.aeroventure.org.uk/index.php

Thanks transit,

It may be worth a visit to see if my wifes grandfathers old ARP stuff is still in the collection.

However, I find it annoying that a display on the SHEFFIELD blitz has to be housed at DONCASTER

Didn't Doncaster get blitzed in the war?

It was after all a major industrial railway town at the time.

If it did it could have its own Blitz museum and let us have ours back.

[hilldweller]

I suppose there must be many working-class folk of a certain age who remember "Banners Cheques" & "Banners Money".

If you were a bit short of the readies you could obtain a "Banners Cheque" from the "Tally Man" and pay for it over many weeks at a high rate of interest.

You could only spend this at Banners and instead of getting your change in coin of the realm, you got it in "Banners Money" which were aluminium and brass coins in the usual denominations. You had to watch your change in the 50's/60's in case it contained "Banners Money".

I remember the trip down Attercliffe Road because the tram drivers used to swing the controllers right over and the trip must have been the fastest tram journey in Sheffield. It was great fun for a young lad with the bumping and swaying but I don't think the grown-ups were very keen.

HD

[hilldweller]

This page is left intentionally blank.

(I managed to post the same item twice----------somehow)

Sorry :o

hilldweller

[ukelele lady]

Thanks transit,

It may be worth a visit to see if my wifes grandfathers old ARP stuff is still in the collection.

However, I find it annoying that a display on the SHEFFIELD blitz has to be housed at DONCASTER

Didn't Doncaster get blitzed in the war?

It was after all a major industrial railway town at the time.

If it did it could have its own Blitz museum and let us have ours back.

I agree with you Dave , I know of many who never got their " on loan "

back. I also had a few ideas where certain things went as I spent quite

a lot of time at the place.

And Dave , they called it " TIMES GONE BY "

[SteveHB]

Topics merged

[DaveH]

I suppose there must be many working-class folk of a certain age who remember "Banners Cheques" & "Banners Money".

If you were a bit short of the readies you could obtain a "Banners Cheque" from the "Tally Man" and pay for it over many weeks at a high rate of interest.

You could only spend this at Banners and instead of getting your change in coin of the realm, you got it in "Banners Money" which were aluminium and brass coins in the usual denominations. You had to watch your change in the 50's/60's in case it contained "Banners Money".

I remember the trip down Attercliffe Road because the tram drivers used to swing the controllers right over and the trip must have been the fastest tram journey in Sheffield. It was great fun for a young lad with the bumping and swaying but I don't think the grown-ups were very keen.

HD

I can vaguely remember Banners cheques and money as a kid, but I also have this vague memory that Banners on Attercliffe Road wasn't the only place that they could be used.

Was there another shop either on snig hill or somewhere out along Langsett / Penistone Roads out towards Hillsborough (may even have been at Hillsborough) where Banners cheques / money could be used?

[DaveH]

I agree with you Dave , I know of many who never got their " on loan "

back. I also had a few ideas where certain things went as I spent quite

a lot off time at the place.

And Dave , they called it " TIMES GONE BY "

Yes it was called Times Gone By now you come to mention it.

But everyone seemed to call it "The Blitz Museum"

[hilldweller]

I can vaguely remember Banners cheques and money as a kid, but I also have this vague memory that Banners on Attercliffe Road wasn't the only place that they could be used.

Was there another shop either on snig hill or somewhere out along Langsett / Penistone Roads out towards Hillsborough (may even have been at Hillsborough) where Banners cheques / money could be used?

I think you are referring to Blanchards which used to be mainly based in an old building on Infirmary Road (now replaced by Windsors Shoes).

If my memory serves me correctly you could use "Provident Cheques" as I think they were called there, as well as at Banners. Blanchards was quite an old fashioned place with a Lamson Vacuum System to the cashiers office from each counter. You paid the assistant who put the sales chit and your cash in a brass cylinder and place it up the spout and eventually (sometimes several minutes later) you got your change and receipt.

Another place which took Provident Cheques was a very old shop called I think Laceys situated where the bottom entrance to John Lewis is today.

The interior was straight out of Dickens with a number of floors reached by ancient wooden stairs and ramps. Even as a small lad I rember thinking what a wonder that it hadn't burnt down.

hilldweller

[Guest johnbaz]

I can remember Banners with their strange shaped coins, i can also remember the vacuum transport thingymajig, we had the exact same thing where i work (Sheffield Forgemasters), it was linked from the light railway foundry to the labs in the melting shop and was used to send samples of the steel for analysis..

Banners always reminded me of an old museum, it had the same musty smell to it, it was also the first time i'd ever sen elevators and the moving stairs (i was only about 5 years old at the time )

John :)

[Guest gill smith]

I love your painting ... and do you remember Burgesses Mens shop next door? I worked there bak in 63!

i remember burgesses, do you remember march the tailor just after banners , and Rickeys on the corner near the Adelpi opposite the baths.

[Guest gill smith]

I worked at Banners in 1964!! in the boys dept my bosses name was Les Armour .we sold alot of Beatle Suits .remember the ones without a collar ? it was Beatle hysteria .. I was 18 at that time ...and I remember the tube system ... and the pink Provident Cheques and there was another one if I recall called Shillito?? it was Green ...I remember Mrs Newbould was the buyer for the materials and Patterns . and my sister Janice worked down on the ground floor on cosmetics .. her buyers name was Mrs Smith ... My best friend at that time was Mary Goddard .. she worked in Handbags dept ... we had so much fun back then ... ..

I worked at Banners 1963 i worked in there offices but didn't like it ,one day a week we had to work on the tubes pushing them back to the department, after they had put the change in them , I then had a transfere to the ladies coat department , i thought that it was Mrs Raybould but i might be mistaken.

[DaveH]

I think you are referring to Blanchards which used to be mainly based in an old building on Infirmary Road (now replaced by Windsors Shoes).

If my memory serves me correctly you could use "Provident Cheques" as I think they were called there, as well as at Banners. Blanchards was quite an old fashioned place with a Lamson Vacuum System to the cashiers office from each counter. You paid the assistant who put the sales chit and your cash in a brass cylinder and place it up the spout and eventually (sometimes several minutes later) you got your change and receipt.

Another place which took Provident Cheques was a very old shop called I think Laceys situated where the bottom entrance to John Lewis is today.

The interior was straight out of Dickens with a number of floors reached by ancient wooden stairs and ramps. Even as a small lad I rember thinking what a wonder that it hadn't burnt down.

hilldweller

To be honest hilldweller, its that long ago and so vague a memory that I can't be sure which shop it was. the memory dates from when we lived on Wentworth Street before slum clearance and i haven't had a lot to do with that side of town since. We left the area in late 1958 and I was 3 at the time so that the fact that I can even vaguely remember it at all is pretty good going.

[ukelele lady]

To be honest hilldweller, its that long ago and so vague a memory that I can't be sure which shop it was. the memory dates from when we lived on Wentworth Street before slum clearance and i haven't had a lot to do with that side of town since. We left the area in late 1958 and I was 3 at the time so that the fact that I can even vaguely remember it at all is pretty good going.

Blanchards covered the whole of the block including the furniture shop there that has changed from

Slaters to other names over the the years. Barkers Caterers stood on the other corner of the road

[ Albert Terrace Road ]

[hilldweller]

Blanchards covered the whole of the block including the furniture shop there that has changed from

Slaters to other names over the the years. Barkers Caterers stood on the other corner of the road

[ Albert Terrace Road ]

I don't think that Blanchards covered the entire block. The main shop selling clothes and curtains and the like was in old premises that ran from the corner of Albert Terrace Road. Then there was a bit of a bomb-site type gap followed by a post-war building that was part of Blanchards and sold furniture and household goods. I can remember an emergency dash to the latter building to buy a replacement alarm clock when my father was on mornings down the pit. The rest of the block was older shop property as of now. I can also remember being sent to a boot and shoe shop, which was further along where the Kelvin was built, to buy horse-shoe shaped irons to fasten on to the wooden soles of my fathers pit-boots. Part of his job was to slow down the pit trucks by sliding along the rails after them. This used to wear grooves through the boot irons and I had the job as a lad of replacing them .

HD

[ukelele lady]

I don't think that Blanchards covered the entire block. The main shop selling clothes and curtains and the like was in old premises that ran from the corner of Albert Terrace Road. Then there was a bit of a bomb-site type gap followed by a post-war building that was part of Blanchards and sold furniture and household goods. I can remember an emergency dash to the latter building to buy a replacement alarm clock when my father was on mornings down the pit. The rest of the block was older shop property as of now. I can also remember being sent to a boot and shoe shop, which was further along where the Kelvin was built, to buy horse-shoe shaped irons to fasten on to the wooden soles of my fathers pit-boots. Part of his job was to slow down the pit trucks by sliding along the rails after them. This used to wear grooves through the boot irons and I had the job as a lad of replacing them .

HD

Sorry hilldweller , what I meant by whole of the block was not just Windsors shoe shop as you mentioned

but the corner, Slaters included. I believe their name is in the stone work on the block down Albert Terrace Road.

My sister worked there and I remember them all dressed in black.

Although I was born well after the war the part that got bombed was our play ground.

They used to say " ar tha playin ont bomb Blanchards? " lol

[Guest middle for diddle]

I lived at firvale and there was a banners there too. It was a fabulous place with pollished wooden counters, I used to ge tinto trouble for standing on the grill that covered the heating pipes whihc ran along the floor in front of these so that i could see oveer them!! I was only five!! My mother bought fabric for my dresses there and at whitsuntide we went up the sweeping staircase to the upper floor to buy new white ankle socks and black patent ankle strap shoes-- luxury! The huge ornately framed mirrors made the place feel like apalace to me. As reported the money went flying through overhead tubes to the cashire in a cage -- sheer magic!

[Sheffield History]

[DaveJC]

My late mother worked there in the 1940’s and 50’s, along with her work mates who remained lifelong friends, and strangely enough most went on to far bigger things. All were working class class women, which didn’t inhibit them, perhaps John Banners had something special going on.

[Stunmon]

The little shop  up to the right next door to Banner Building is Momentos. He is a superb picture framer. We've had our prints framed by him over the past twenty years. His little shop is a treasure trove! He's also a very nice and articulate person!!!!

[winco1960]

My first ever job was in the Jacksons/Grandways foodhall on the basement floor in 1977 while I was still at school.  I recieved £5 for 3 hours on a Friday night plus all day Saturday. I ended up working for them full time and since then have spent 40 years in the supermarket business. I have nothing but good memories about my time there.

We used the Banners canteen for our breaks and went from one floor to another using some stone steps running from the basement to the top floor. Each floor has now been converted into seperate units and the customer lift plus the stairs to the basement are long gone.

[DaveJC]

Buildings like this are difficult enough to find a use for in the city centre, let alone in the barren wilderness of Attercliffe Common. I can’t get further than a Mosque and Muslim cultural centre, but not being an expert on Islamic needs and requirements I’ll assume that this has not passed over the heads of their elders, answers on a postcard please. 🤔