Ramblings Platts Common

A Memory of Platts Common.

I Lived at 14 Barnsley Road Platts Common from 1950 until 1957 when we moved to 46 Kingswood Crescent.
I went to Market Street school where Mr Ellis was headteacher. I remember miss Mac Parkalin, Mrs Hill, Miss Norcliffe, Mrs Forcette, Penny Jenn.. and Mr Charlie Round. Pete Lindley was the son of George and Helen Lindley, shop keeper corner of Silver Steet.. and later Post Office just down Wombwell Road. The last I knew Peter still lived nearby in Northumberland Avenue. Other school mates were, Gary Scawthorne, of Sheffield Wednesday fame and played against the famous Pele..Jacky Slater, Billy Bagnell and brothers Frank and Johnny, Peter Cutts, Jimmy Barraclough, Terry Allen, Christine Malison , Janice Booth, Susan Noble the Preedy brothers , Noel was one of their names , I can see many other faces but can only put first names to them.
I remember the pit head just behind the Royal Oak pub on Barnsley Road the miners spewing out of the pit with their coal dust mascaraed eyes. My dad worked several pitts in the area and bore the blue scars of coal dust filled cuts.. he died young of cancer caused by black lung desease. I could write more about his pit experience..
Jackson’s Haberdashery and small toy shop was on the corner next to the red telephone box which sometimes I would have to wait outside waiting for a phone call which I would have to relate to my mum. Also on Barnsley Road we’re Hagues Yard and the then original Post Office, just down from the Pheasant Inn and Bowling Green which in the summers of my early teens took over from playing marbles. We could hire the woods and play crown green bowls’s until we were hungry. George Chipchase’s sweetshop was next door sandwiched between our house and the Royal Oak. We would get thripence (three pence) we would buy, black jacks, 4 for a penny, fry’s chocolate bars, sugar barley twist, chocolate toffee twist, liquorice sticks, two ounces of pineapple cubes, pear drops or lemon sherbet, sherbert dips, sugar mice, candy cigarettes as well as the lucky bags with sherbet flying saucers. He was a grouchy old so and so at times and would call out his wife if there was any weighing involved.
Hague’s Yard had communal slop washing areas in outhouses and on wash day in my memory all the lines in the morning were coved in white bed linen held up with a plethora of clothes props and then day clothes in the afternoon.
I rememberer a young man called Bernard who wore baggy woolen jumpers with holes in the sleeves only later in life did I realise he was Platts Commons own Beatnik. He would sit playing an electric guitar without an amplifier on the street it sounded incredibly tinny to a six year old. Then there was Tommy Cobb who when after he began work along with one of his mates bought themselves zoot suits.. brothel creepers and bootlace ties they were the teddy boys. I remember the crimson suit and black velvet collar they looked the dogs b—-locks.
On Wombwell Road where it met Barnsley Road was the butchers shop owned by Johnny Bean.. he looked the part rotund and jolly in my mind. My mum like others had a slate with him that she settled on pay day. I remember her once querying a large pork pie that was on her bill, only to find out that my brother Kenny had been and told Johnny that my mum wanted one which he then ate without telling anyone. A few doors away was Dolly Steeples the local grocery store much more expensive than the coop up Barnsley Road but more convenient for the odd one off or out of hours sale.
My dad had a small holding and reared hens for eggs and cockerels for Christmas Dinner which he sold to friends and family.. and when we were of school age my mum always worked part time to fit in with school and dad’s shift pattern. I remember carrying chickens in bags with her to the hospital where she worked, tins of broken biscuits from the factory where she worked and Bassets sweets from another. She always worked until dad became very ill.. he was only 54 when he died.
I remember gas lamps outside the house, dolly tubs and mangles, flat irons and black leaded fire ranges with ovens at either side, I can still smell the fresh baked bread and taste the jam tarts and custards we made. I remember the tin bath in front of the fire and mother soaking her feet after we had been bathed and before dad jumped in. The working man’s club was at the heart of the community being an escape from work and a place to relax. My mum and dad would go occasionally and there would be parties and trips to the seaside for us, all paid for out of the profits and membership fees.
I could go on but I won’t. Platts Common has all changed now.

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