Chapter 1 - Grangetown

In the Beginning ~ Grangetown

It is fairly predictable that any male child born in a street named after Sir Henry Bessemer (the inventor of the Bessemer process to make small quantities of steel from pig iron quickly) could end up working in a steel plant. Which indeed happened to my two younger brothers and me. Bessemer street was the nearest to the plant of 9 such streets which each had approximately 120 houses per street which provided homes for the workmen and their families.

Bessemer Street had a wonderful view from the backyard not to be confused with backyard as is known in Canada; there was not a blade of grass for miles around. The view being seven in a row of open hearth steel furnaces which ran parallel to the street and spewed out tons of pollution daily along with help from the Coke ovens and many Blast furnaces doing the same thing and situated too close in proximity to the houses. I can recall many times of laundry having to be re-washed after being hung out for drying and then coated with sooty deposits from said furnaces making the lives of many housewives miserable on washdays.

All the homes were built as carbon copies of each other, which left little room for one upmanship between the residents of the beautiful town. Instead of waking up to the sound of birds singing, the staple joke was “time to get up the birds are coughing.” Its only virtue was that you could walk to work each day the works entrance being only 200 yards from the front door of our house.

The steelworks also employed dad for many years so walking in your father’s footsteps was a phrase very true. There were three schools in the town Infants, Junior, and High School, affectionately called the “Willie Wets” after Sir William Worsley who had some connection to the Royal family and lived on a large estate somewhere near the city of York.

I attended all three schools in succession along with all the other scruffy kids in the neighbourhood, until I reached the ripe old age of fourteen when one had to leave school and find a job.

All houses in the area belonged to the steelworks.  Sleeping accommodations in a three-bedroom house became quite a challenge, especially after Enid came along.  There were parents in one bedroom, three boys in another, and Little Granddad in his own bedroom. So, once Enid came along, the parlor downstairs was used as a bedroom for mom and dad to ease the problem. Also there was only one toilet between seven of us but fortunately it was an indoor version and the bathroom was separate.

Things also eased off as each of the boys went in turn to do duty in National service for two years so for many months there was always one of us away from home. There was no point in complaining, the conscription applied to each and every man in the country over the age of 18 and was scheduled to last for at least two years. Some thought it robbed them of two years of their youth which may have been true but it certainly taught you other valuable lessons, which you could not have learned anywhere else.

Ray Bland born at 48 Bessemer Street on October 2, 1928

Doreen Weston born at 33 Vickers Street on June 20, 1932 

Both houses are marked, only streets away

Whitworth Road looking North 1920

Whitworth Road looking South 1930

Grangetown Circa 1930

Washing hung in the back arch. 1960’s

Houses amid the Steel Works