Looking Back: When the city was such an exciting place to visit

The last Sheffield tram, not to be confused with Supertram, made its journey on October 8, 1960 which was actually my birthday. There were celebrations along the route from Beauchief to Tinsley Depot. People put coins on the tram tracks so that the tram would flatten them as it passed. I wonder how many people still have theirs in a box somewhere.

Sheffield City Centre was a very exciting place in the 1950s.Every time we went into town things seemed to be different. Work was well under way rebuilding C&A which had been bombed in the Sheffield Blitz of December 1940, although the Burton site next door seemed to be in its sorry state for ages. B&C Co-op on Angel Street had also been bombed but a prefabricated version of it had been built in 1950 until there was the grand splendour of the new Castle House opening in 1964.

It's sad today to see the boarded up Halifax Bank on High Street. It was home to the original John Walsh store which was also destroyed in the Blitz and rebuilt further down the road, becoming later Rackhams, House of Fraser and then TJ Hughes.

The original bombed site became the ‘Garden for the Blind’ with railings round it, collection boxes and sensory flowers. It was there until the end of the 1950s when it was sold to Saxone shoe shops, then the Halifax Building Society. So much history on one site. What will it become now I wonder?

There were the ‘posh’ shops’ including Marshall and Snelgrove, Cockaynes, Cole Bros and Madam Maries on Division Street for designer hats.

Andrews where we bought stationery for school and Hibberts Art Shop where my father bought his painting materials.

For toys it was Redgates, men’s fashions meant Austin Reed, John Collier, Winstons and the up-market Barney Goodman.

There was the Castle Market, Norfolk Market Hall and ‘Rag and Tag’ market. All much missed!

And ‘Atkinsons’ for everything. How comforting to know that it is still there today despite so many City Centre changes!!