1949 – a year of big changes
SIXTY years ago, as Doncaster wondered what changes 1949 might bring, there were several issues from 1948 still undecided.
On the sporting scene the question was could Doncaster Rovers ever return to a higher division, and stay there? Supporters were furious with their relegation, and directors had to resign.
Was Bruce Woodcock capable of beating Joe Louis for the world heavyweight title and would he even get the chance?
The big industrial talking point was could the newly-nationalised coal industry be made to work producing ever more coal? Briggs was making Javelin car bodies. Did the future lie in the car industry?
And a Rossington wife waited fearfully for news of her husband. Would the Greeks execute him?
Alan Berry, then a Doncaster reporter completing his National Service in Scotland, received all the local newspapers, and summarises them once a fortnight...
n In JANUARY the slow demise of elegant ballroom dancing and the arrival of jitterbugging was reported.
The manager of one Doncaster dance hall was quoted as saying teenagers had taken over the dance halls and the future for the 'better-class' of dancing was in doubt.
The question was being asked: Do pit boots cause foot ailments? Were they badly-made? When the country needed every ton of coal it could get it was an important subject.
A correspondent wrote about the demise of the small village church choir. Choirmen were going to the pictures on Sundays and then preferring alcohol.
Syd Bycroft was dropped from Rovers' first team. The centre-half had not missed a game in 68 matches.
n FEBRUARY: Local boxer Billy Thompson became the new European light heavyweight champion.
Villagers at Burghwallis banded together armed with cudgels after thieves made a 'house-to-house collection'.
Wadworth announced Maypole dancing would be resumed there after an absence of 10 years.
n MARCH: Dr Ward, a Balby GP, spoke as a witness for the NSPCC and advocated that parents of large families who neglected their children should be sterilised. He was convinced it was the only remedy for cruel and neglectful mothers and fathers. He said prison was no deterrent. His radical view was greeted with horror by most. It found very little support.
The entire colony of bees in an indoor hive at Beechfield Museum had been wiped out. The curator explained the bees had thought it was summer but when the cold weather came back they starved and died.
Short-term plans to reduce traffic congestion in Doncaster were published but it was feared that it would be another 20 years before an inner ring road was possible, with houses in the town centre being pulled down. The vision of the future was of our descendants sunbathing on the lush green slopes of the Cheswold and Don river banks.
Askern lakeside was to be turned into a beauty spot 'unequalled anywhere in the Doncaster district.' It would be ready in 1952. We could all dream.
n APRIL: Continental holidays were the new thing for those with a bit of money. Three hundred Doncaster people arranged to spend their summer vacation abroad.
READ MORE ON NEXT PAGE
What do you think? Add your comment below.
READ MORE
Main news index
Your letters
Features
South Yorkshire's environmental news
Kids Zone
More business news
More Rotherham news
More Doncaster news
More Barnsley news
Latest sport
Doncaster Communist Party vehemently denied they had a secret list of 114 councillors and union leaders who would be deprived of all civil rights – or worse – come The Revolution. Clearly another bit of scaremongering
n MAY: Parliament abolished capital punishment for a trial period of five years. The voting was 345 to 232. Mr Wade, a local businessman who was deputy to Pierrepoint the hangman, did not approve. Public opinion should have been tested, he said. He was now out of a job but expected he would be back at work in the not too distant future. Further questioned he said: “Mr Pierrepoint and I always have a good night’s sleep in the prison before we go to work at 6.30am.”
Thorne Council gave permission for Sunday cinemas.
The season was ending with Doncaster Rovers at the foot of the league table and facing relegation.
Older people refused to believe they could now have free spectacles and free dental treatment.
n JUNE: The nation was said to be having serious thoughts about the wisdom of nationalising the mines.
The town’s barrow boys (men who sold fruit and veg in Doncaster market and elsewhere) achieved respectability when they were recognised officially by Doncaster Labour Exchange which declared they did a good job. There were more than 100 of them who got up before anyone else to go to markets such as Hull and Liverpool to obtain produce unobtainable in the shops. It was also much fresher.
The Don Valley authority decided schoolchildren would not be allowed to help harvest potatoes this year despite repeated requests and the threat that thousands of tons could be wasted and the nation go without its chips.
n JULY: A vote of no confidence in the Rovers directors was ruled out of order at a rowdy meeting of the Supporters’ Club. Eventually new directors were appointed. The education authority declared there would be proper careers for all school leavers this autumn. The days of the errand boy were over.
n AUGUST: It was announced the supply of cooking fat would be sufficient to allow chip shops to be open every night of the week.
Mr Holmes, Don Valley divisional education officer, wanted cinema owners to show at least one performance a week of an educational film. Too many children were forced to see inappropriate films, he claimed, and too many boys brought before juvenile courts were adversely affected by films which were often cheap, unpleasant and not the sort boys should see.
There was great excitement at the news the King and Queen would watch the Leger. The prize money would be the highest ever offered in England.
n SEPTEMBER: A Mr Parkinson, of St Mary’s Road, was believed to be the oldest Old Boy of Doncaster Grammar School. He was a pupil there in 1874. The announcement was challenged by a Lound reader aged 95 who said he was a pupil in 1864. He remembered the day when the headmaster appeared in court for clipping a boy round the ear. The lad’s parents said the child subsequently suffered glandular trouble. The headmaster was found guilty but his 50 pupils took pity on him and bought him a clock and some knives and forks as a token of sympathy.
n OCTOBER: After weeks of pleading by the farmers and the Minister of Agriculture, the Don Valley and West Riding education authorities agreed children could pick potatoes.
A plan to build a power station on Crimpsall Ings within half a mile of the centre of Doncaster was described as shockingly bad planning. The Civic Trust could hardly believe it. All appeals were ignored.
Rovers held Hull City to a draw before a record crowd of 36,000.
Doncaster dairymen decided on a six-day delivery system The milk ration remained at two-and-a-half pints a week. Doncaster food shop assistants asked for a five-and-a-half day week.
Teenage actor Brian Roper flew to Hollywood to star in a chldren’s film.
n NOVEMBER: A Balby reader claimed he could get a 2,190 word message on a postcard – or a chapter of Dickens’ novel Barnaby Rudge. Had he been more careful he could have got more. He challenged readers to do better. None responded.
A retiring headmaster revealed he always kept boxing gloves in his cupboard so boys who wanted to scrap could punch each other safely over three rounds with a referee to adjudicate.
The authorities relented and decided schoolchildren would help with the potato harvest, but the farmers still wanted more.
n DECEMBER: The true horror of subsidence caused by colliery workings was seen at Bentley. Houses were falling down around the people living in them. Some residents were able to see and hear their neighbours through huge cracks in the brickwork.
Boxer Woodcock has won both fights since his comeback but has not been sufficiently tested to get a world title tilt.
Richard Dimbleby brought his Down Your Way wireless programme to Doncaster. His mobile recording unit visited the Plant Works, Belle Vue Stables, the market, Parkinsons’ butterscotch factory and Elmfield House youth club.
Jowett Javelin car bodies are being made at Briggs factory in Balby.
Mr Ambatielos, the husband of a Rossington woman, is one of nine men who, it is reported, face the death penalty after being found guilty by a Greek court of treachery – although the precise nature of the alleged offence is not explained. It is probably political rather than criminal. He was secretary of a seafarers’ union and trade unionists all over the country, and local miners, rushed to his defence. Mr Ambatielos was expected in Rossington for Christmas, but now all is fear and disarray...
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Sheffield
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Light sleet
Temperature: -1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 6 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Light snow
Temperature: -6 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South east
