Where smoke got in your eyes: Tinsley
TINSLEY, says Stephen Johnson picturesquely, snuggles up between Sheffield and Rotherham. At times neither wanted it, at others both did.
It is 1,400 years since Anglo Saxon settlers established Tings Leah - it meant field of council - on the banks of the Don and Sheffield didn't swallow it up until 1933.
Now, it has its own history in Stephen's The Tinsley Chronicle, "the amazingly startling story of one of Sheffield's oldest suburbs."
For Stephen, known for off-the-wall books like Deadications - Things They Say And Do About You When You're Dead, a miscellany of local epitaphs - this is a pretty straight forward history.
Nevertheless it is one of the first Tinsley has had.
Stephen, who works at Sheffield local studies library, had little material on his shelves so he took the 69 bus and interviewed old residents in Tinsley Library.
As he shows, there is more to Tinsley than the Towers.
Tinsley may have been picturesque once but today it is not. Many of the factories which were part of Britain's powerhouse in the last war have long gone. They weren't razed by Hitler - Tinsley and Carbrook got off lightly in the Blitz with three dead - but by economics.
Hadfield's and Edgar Allen's steelworks have been replaced by Meadowhall - "technically not in Tinsley but right next door and you can't ignore it," says Stephen reasonably - and the pace of change has been fast.
In the Sixties, what with the factories, power station and the motorway, Tinsley was one of the dirtiest places in Sheffield. Those cooling towers and nearby factories belched 29 tons of sulphur into the skies each day.
"Keeping windows and doorsteps clean was a constant battle for housewives. 'Go outside and get some fresh air' would not have been a commonly heard phrase in Tinsley," he says.
Today it's cleaner but the birthplace of England 'keeper Gordon Banks, is still waiting for something to happen.
"It's going to need a kick-start into life," says Stephen.
The Tinsley Chronicle, price 7, will be launched at Tinsley Library on Friday, September 17, by Lord Mayor Alan Law.
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