Sheffield Manor Parish

WWII Talk

On Tuesday 14th May we welcomed Grace Tebbutt from Manor Lodge to St Aidan's to give us a talk about WWII in Sheffield and in the local area.  It was fascinating to hear about the people who lived at Manor Cottage Farm during the war years, and also a bit more about the Sheffield blitz.  Grace had prepared a slideshow with some wonderful photos for us to look at, and the event stimulated a lot of discussion and reminiscing.

Please click on the pictures to enlarge them (sorry for the poor quality).  The second photograph is of a VJ party on Manor Lane.

Interview Snippets - Malcolm and Jean

On 12th March we interviewed Malcolm and Jean Mercer, who have lived in the area almost all their lives and are now in their 80s.  They had lots of lovely stories to share and below are a few snippets.

When asked about early life, Jean said:

And Malcolm said:

Malcolm also talked about his parents:

Jean recalled trips on the tram:

Malcolm talked about his time in the Navy during WWII:

And Jean remembered what their wedding was like:

Malcolm also talked about his family's connection with St Swithun's church:

Next Event - Talk by Grace Tebbutt

Don't forget our next event will be on Tuesday 14th May at 2.00pm at St Aidan's.  Grace Tebbutt, the Community History Project Officer at Manor Lodge will be coming to tell us all about WWII in Sheffield and the local area, with a particular focus on Manor Cottage Farm which sounds fascinating.  All are welcome to come along and find out more.

Norfolk Heritage Park Tour and Talk

On Saturday 27th April we enjoyed a tour and talk at Norfolk Heritage Park, one of the country's oldest public parks.  The event was held at the Centre in the Park and hosted by Erica Fidment and Marge Allen, two of the Friends of Norfolk Park.  They shared with us some of the history of the park and told us about the difficulties in keeping it running (more Friends needed!).

After the talk we got a chance to look at some of the historical documents, pictures and other items such as the medals that commemorated Queen Victoria's visit to the park in her jubilee year (1897) when 50,000 school children sang for her and around 200,000 people were in the park.

Erica and Marge kindly posed for us, Erica wearing the 1960s park-keeper's hat.  In the first picture they were asked to look like stern 1960s park-keepers, but just to show they're not really scary people after all we took a picture of them smiling too!

Finally, we went on a tour round the park.  It was lovely to see the beauty of the park and the weather just about managed to stay fine!

With grateful thanks to Erica and Marge for putting on this event for us. 

As always, please click on the pictures to view a larger image.