Memories of star spotting and watching characters in Sheffield city centre

Reading the memories of the Star Editor Nancy about city centre shops made me laugh and realise that I have many of those, more possibly than she has, as of course she is a mere spring chicken compared with me!

It seems that many of these memories date right back to my school days, quite some time ago, with not so many recent ones and, after all, I suppose I got out more in times gone by!

We were lucky that we got off our school bus in Balm Green, very near to where the side door of the Grand Hotel was back in the day.

Later, it would become the site of Josephine’s Nightclub but the hotel was the place for star spotting. Many very big names stayed there when they had concerts at the Empire Theatre, Gaumont or City Hall.

We hung about for ages once we got to town but late afternoon would possibly have been too early for pop stars to make an appearance.

We often saw the manager of the Empire, Johnny Spitzer, emerge through the revolving doors of the hotel, with difficulty as he was a very large man, resplendent in full evening dress and walking down to the theatre ready for the evening performance.

The only big name we ever saw was Lonnie Donegan and I possibly prefer to forget that.

If you can picture half a dozen schoolgirls in bottle green uniforms, swinging satchels, felt hats waving, charging down Pinstone Street after Lonnie who was appearing that week at the Empire.

When we caught up with him, he uttered breathlessly immortal fan-friendly words of which ‘Off’ is the only printable one! We never looked at him the same way again! Who can blame him, though!

Once we reached 15 years old it became important to try to obtain a Saturday job.

Other than paper girls, there were not many around, so it was exciting to become employed by Woolworths on the Moor in the weeks before Christmas. The jobs were on the Christmas card counters.

This was not a good move for someone whose mathematical acumen was non-existent. Cards were placed in racks of 2d, 3d and 4d, with envelopes at the back of the racks.

With no electronic tills, we had to mentally add up the total of the cards which for me was a nightmare.

Even more of a nightmare was the number of people who came back to the store complaining that they hadn’t been given envelopes! Luckily, it was a temporary position.

One of Sheffield’s most prestigious stores in the 1950s was the original Cole Brothers store.

Occasionally we would venture through the revolving doors which led straight into the perfume department where the smell of perfume and expensive creams would hit you.

Archive pictures paint thousands of words of city history

How we longed to look like the goddesses who stood behind the counters and who had perfectly made up faces with cupid bow lips.

So, it was wicked to purchase stink bombs one day from a joke shop on Convent Walk when we came out of school, casually walk into Cole Bros, and slip the bombs under our feet.

We made a hasty exit, walked round for a while before returning to find the goddesses running round in panic with the most appalling smell in the air!

I hope their decision to move to Barkers Pool had nothing to do with it.

How we ever got home from school I will never know. There were some very interesting, never mind totally off-the-wall characters roaming round the city centre in those days.

Who remembers The Duke of Darnall who directed traffic at the corner of Haymarket near Fitzalan Square and always wore a morning coat and bowler hat with flower in his button hole?

It is said that one of his friends was the eccentric, colourfully-dressed, Russian Edna, who spent much time in the Barleycorn public house on Cambridge Street, and was murdered in High Hazels Park.

Pond Street Nora, who shouted a lot, kept her worldly possessions in carrier bags and slept in the toilets at Pond Street bus station?

Rommel, so nicknamed because he wore a flying jacket and pilot goggles and who rummaged in all the rubbish bins, and of course poor old Cyril the tramp, who slept in shop doorways and the Hole in the Road in the days before street sleepers became more common.

The markets were also a place of entertainment. Big Ada had a stall on Dixon Lane and, it was said, could hold her own with any man when it came to fighting or swearing.

Alas, we never saw either!

And we were transfixed by the theatricals of Joe ‘Potty’ Edwards in the Rag and Tag market, who could juggle a whole tea service in the air.

Just outside the entrance to the market was the lady with the enormous brass weighing scales who, it was said, could accurately guess your weight before you sat in the chair.

In fact, Sheffield then provided such entertainment. No wonder we loved going to town!

In these confusing and worrying times, local journalism is more vital than ever. Thanks to everyone who helps us ask the questions that matter by taking out a digital subscription or buying a paper. We stand together. Nancy Fielder, editor.