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Fitzalan Square


Sheffield History

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11 hours ago, tozzin said:

This photo is bereft of alcoholics, druggies and “ homeless” I use that term very loosely, I never ever saw any street drinkers etc in the fifties or sixties until it became fashionable when it was realised that you could earn more money begging than working. I much prefer the old square when it had the stone shelters for tram passengers, the only people you would see would be mainly men chatting and waiting for the Bell or the Elephant to open, you had to live it to appreciate just what I lived through.

I recall the hour prior to the city centre ‘waking up’, where you couldn’t walk a couple of yards without someone passing the time of day with you, then there was Pond Street Norah, who had a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, who was the guy in the black and stripes and Homburg hat, was it the Duke of Darnall?

John, the Town Hall bobby controlled his beat with vigour, even superior officers were very deferential when addressing him, I well recall asking his advice when I mentioned the new phenomena of shop lifting to him, I had a fairly senior position with a major retail chain that was losing close to the amount it was selling, quick as a flash John replied “Let the beat bobbies have the use of your tea rooms Dave”, job done the look on the suspects faces when a couple of uniformed bobbies walked though the shops was a picture.

True there was more litter/wastage in those days as we hadn’t quite cracked the new ‘throw away’ society, thing like cardboard and othe packaging was left outside shops with no actual places to store it, however the council soon got it’s act together, along with the street sweepers, who did a cracking job.

I apologise for having hands on experience of the city centre in the 1960’s, it obviously doesn’t mirror some folk’s imaginings.

 

 

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14 minutes ago, DaveJC said:

I recall the hour prior to the city centre ‘waking up’, where you couldn’t walk a couple of yards without someone passing the time of day with you, then there was Pond Street Norah, who had a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, who was the guy in the black and stripes and Homburg hat, was it the Duke of Darnall?

John, the Town Hall bobby controlled his beat with vigour, even superior officers were very deferential when addressing him, I well recall asking his advice when I mentioned the new phenomena of shop lifting to him, I had a fairly senior position with a major retail chain that was losing close to the amount it was selling, quick as a flash John replied “Let the beat bobbies have the use of your tea rooms Dave”, job done the look on the suspects faces when a couple of uniformed bobbies walked though the shops was a picture.

True there was more litter/wastage in those days as we hadn’t quite cracked the new ‘throw away’ society, thing like cardboard and othe packaging was left outside shops with no actual places to store it, however the council soon got it’s act together, along with the street sweepers, who did a cracking job.

I apologise for having hands on experience of the city centre in the 1960’s, it obviously doesn’t mirror some folk’s imaginings.

 

 

Im sure there are lots of differences between the 60s and present day - some which will no doubt be losses to society in the present day and some which will no doubt improvements to what life was like in the 60s.

the discussion was more about the design of the square though - not the people in it - and no ones demonstrated yet that the square was visually or practically better then - in fact all the images suggest that the current incarnation is a big improvement.

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16 minutes ago, DaveJC said:

I recall the hour prior to the city centre ‘waking up’, where you couldn’t walk a couple of yards without someone passing the time of day with you, then there was Pond Street Norah, who had a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, who was the guy in the black and stripes and Homburg hat, was it the Duke of Darnall?

John, the Town Hall bobby controlled his beat with vigour, even superior officers were very deferential when addressing him, I well recall asking his advice when I mentioned the new phenomena of shop lifting to him, I had a fairly senior position with a major retail chain that was losing close to the amount it was selling, quick as a flash John replied “Let the beat bobbies have the use of your tea rooms Dave”, job done the look on the suspects faces when a couple of uniformed bobbies walked though the shops was a picture.

True there was more litter/wastage in those days as we hadn’t quite cracked the new ‘throw away’ society, thing like cardboard and othe packaging was left outside shops with no actual places to store it, however the council soon got it’s act together, along with the street sweepers, who did a cracking job.

I apologise for having hands on experience of the city centre in the 1960’s, it obviously doesn’t mirror some folk’s imaginings.

 

 

I firmly believe that the upsurge in litter and dumping was caused by the building of new homes without fireplaces and in older houses electric and gas fires being fitted which left thousands of people with nowhere to burn rubbish, my dad used to "bank" our fire up at night with potato peelings so by morning the fire was still in and the house was warm. Not everybody could afford to but loads of coal so vegetable bits, old shoes etc were saved for the fire, we would never have thought to drop any litter outside unlike todays litterers.

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3 minutes ago, makapaka said:

Im sure there are lots of differences between the 60s and present day - some which will no doubt be losses to society in the present day and some which will no doubt improvements to what life was like in the 60s.

the discussion was more about the design of the square though - not the people in it - and no ones demonstrated yet that the square was visually or practically better then - in fact all the images suggest that the current incarnation is a big improvement.

It was about the actual SQUARE but it doesn't have life without the people who used it.

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On 08/02/2008 at 05:25, mickjj said:

I used to queue to get a taxi in the square but never a tank lol

 

post-14-1202448330_thumb.jpg

Thought you might like to see the same tank taken from further away. This is selling war bonds in 1916/17. I particularly like the slogan on the Electra.

Tank Sheffield 1916.jpg

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