Nobody is likely to ever read this stuff so I am not going to waste time by finding and inserting photos. I have enjoyed digging my memory for these facts about what used to be a very good and well funded library service. (We had a huge book fund and used to look down on poor Leeds who had little money for books). My career in libraries was 1965-1996.

Woodseats Library

I began working here as a trainee librarian when I was 20 in 1965. Until Greenhill Library was built, Woodseats was the busiest branch library in Sheffield. It was very cramped (years later it was extended). The librarian was Bill Batty who never seemed to do any work – he spent every morning reading the Sheffield Morning Telegraph! Of course, we didn’t call him Bill – it was always Mr Batty. Likewise, his senior assistant was Miss Lee, and never Grace.

The library was madly busy Fridays and Saturdays, and the Browne manual issue system was slow and tedious. (Very different now with computers). A reader could have 7 tickets: four were white and only used for non fiction – this practice soon ended thankfully. Each ticket was written by pen and ink – biro or felt tip were not allowed. Each book had a bookcard; when this was inserted in a reader’s ticket - this was called an issue. Putting the issues in order and interfiling them was very time-consuming. Staff became amazingly quick at this though – they had loads of practice! When a book was returned, the issue was found (we called it discharging). Finding an issue among several thousand was fairly slow, demanded concentration and you were on your feet for hours. Some staff were extremely quick at discharging. Stamping books out was quick but filing hundreds of issues caused problems. On a busy Saturday morning two staff would sit in the office all morning putting issues in order and filing. By the afternoon tea break, there was always backlog and we would take piles of issues into the staff room and file the issues while drinking our tea!

Ray Ward at Woodseats

One staff member was Raymond Ward who was notorious for studying the page 3 beauties in his Sun newspaper which we all disapproved of. He also had the unfortunate habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time which used to irritate. He was a clever lad, though, and had appeared twice on a TV quiz show. When he worked at the old Burngreave Library,  the cleaners once requested him to tiddle down the toilet and not on the floor! Another remarkable story was that he stood under the spiral staircase at Burngreave and looked up the skirts of female assistants as they went to the staffroom. Such gossip circulated very quickly round all the libraries! On another occasion, Ray had too much wine at a staff association party and ended up  on his back under a table and again looking up skirts!

The General Reference Library

After six months at Woodseats I was moved to the Reference Library in the Central Library, headed by Mary Walton who wrote the standard book on Sheffield history. She was a great character and a very learned lady. She was a cricket fan and often whispered the latest test match score as she walked by me. In those days before the internet, the phone rang constantly with all sorts of enquiries. I greatly enjoyed dealing with these and with all the work in the library. The counter was always busy with students and members of the public with their enquiries or book requests. They would fill in a request slip which we would send down a tube to the stack in the basement. We would alert the stack ladies by ringing a bell. In the evenings there were no stack ladies to locate the requested book and send it up in the book lift. I used to enjoy running down two flights of stairs, unlocking the stack door and finding the required book. Sometimes the stack lights would go out unexpectedly when staff from the Science Library would find what they wanted and would absentmindedly turn off the lights. I would be plunged into total darkness. I would have to feel my way along the aisles until I found the main switch at the entrance to the stack. And if the lending library upstairs had already closed and was deserted why were there ghostly footsteps to be heard? It was very scary!

In those days we actually did stocktaking in the stack. Each new book was written in a ledger. (We had a dozen or so). You checked each entry in the ledger against the shelves in the stack. It was very time-consuming. If a book listed was not found on the shelves, you had to hunt until you turned it up. What a waste of time!

We worked in the Reference Library until 9pm every night including Saturday. A bonus was tea and biscuits at 8.15pm. I would go up to the kitchen and make tea for both reference libraries – about 6 staff. I would take a tray of tea things down to Local History’s book lift and send it down to Central Lending’s workroom. (This had to be done after 8pm when the lending library closed). I would ring the Science Library who would walk through the lending library for the tea tray. After taking their tea, the tray was sent up to us in the lift. (Sometimes biscuits were put on the tray by thoughtful Science Library staff!) After a quick drink the tray was sent back down to the Science Library, who would then return the tray to the kitchen. This tea service started in WW2 when staffing levels were down as men had joined up. According to Miss Walton, when the men came back after the war, she suggested the tea service should be scrapped but there was a great outcry! Nobody wanted to lose their tea and biscuits.

Woodhouse Branch Library

About 1968 I was surprised to be appointed Branch Librarian here, in charge of two staff. The Senior Assistant was Marjorie Hague who had a admirer: one of the borrowers was Mr Haynes, a bachelor with a stutter. He used to bring expensive Suchard chocolate for her; Dover sole would come on Fridays and even stockings came sometimes – much to the lady’s embarrassment!

Edith Kelk was the cleaner at Woodhouse. She was a warm hearted lady with a broad Sheffield accent. When the library was closed on Thursdays, she worked long hours by herself. She used to get a few visitors dropping in. One unlikely visitor was the Director of Libraries, Bob Atkins, who would call for a cuppa if he was passing by. He sometimes offered her a lift home – but what would the neighbours think!!

Two nights a week I worked by myself until 8pm. It often kept me buy chatting with readers, throwing out nuisances, filing issues, shelving books, checking the float and totalling the fines. The auditors didn’t like me handling cash by myself – they wanted two people. So hard luck! We also had a Listening Group which I hated. Beginning at 8.15, I would play records once a month to a small group of music fans, using a top quality record player. Knowing nothing about music, I would make a random selection from the Music Library in Central. Heaven knows what sort of evening the music fans had!  I was on safer ground replacing the Listening Group with talks and slideshows.

Now at Manor Library there was a very attractive assistant called Barbara Joel. All of us young men thought she was adorable. I was lucky – she was sent to work with me for a few months as maternity relief cover. I was delighted to have her all to myself! Years later, she was my Senior Assistant at Greenhill Library. When she was appointed librarian at nearby Totley Library, we sometimes used to meet in the pub for a lunchtime sandwich. She was always good company. A few years later, I was locking up at Hillsborough Library late at night after a leaving do party. To my surprise, I found myself alone with the feisty Barbara. Looking back, I think (or hope) that she had mischievously engineered this.

After a spell at Liverpool Library School, I became librarian at the tiny Gleadless Library. This was a long way to travel in winter on my motorbike from Rotherham and I soon moved to the old Carnegie library near Tinsley Roundabout. It was a dark dreary library and I didn’t like locking it up at night – it was a bit spooky. There was continuous trouble with groups of rowdy teenagers, and a uniformed attendant was appointed to keep control.  (Soon after I left, a new library was made in a  shop next to the Pike and Heron pub).

Tinsley Library

This was the old Carnegie Library next to Tinsley roundabout. (A later library appeared in a shop premises near the Pike and Heron pub). The old library building was a dreary place on two floors. The childrens' library was upstairs, while downstairs were two room, one for non-fiction and one for fiction. The fiction room could not be seen from the counter in the other room. This led to constant trouble from groups of unruly kids, and a bouncer had to be employed. He was officially a uniformed attendant. I hated locking the library at 8pm on a dark winter's night - it was definitely a spooky building.

Attercliffe Library

Soon I was asked to look after both Attercliffe and Tinsley libraries. Attercliffe was a huge library on two floors near Attercliffe Baths. There was a wonderful highly polished wood block floor. The cleaners were Mrs Holden who worked there for 15 years and her sister Mrs Williamson who worked there for 25 years. They knew how to look after that floor, stripping the polish every year. And the new polish was never slippery unlike many polished floors. A school caretaker once told me he loved seeing the floor. If he was feeling down, the floor always cheered him up.

The gas fired boiler seldom turned itself on in the morning. So every day I spent 20 minutes in the cellar giving the diaphragm a kick to free it off. The boiler would run for a minute and then stop. I sometimes had to kick the darn thing three or four times until the reluctant boiler decided to keep going. I would smoke a couple of fags while attending the boiler.

Wildlife in the library?

Yes, we had cockroaches! There were grilles set in the floor above the  hot water pipes which warmed the building . The cockroaches lived there. We didn’t look after the wildlife though! Angela Bradley worked two nights a week; when she was locking up at 8pm, she would stick two strips of double-sided sellotape on the floor. The following morning there were always three or four cockroaches stuck to the sellotape, feelers and legs still waving. The cleaners wouldn’t touch the blackclocks, as they called them; nor would Angela. So that was another job for me early in the morning.

The library was busy at lunchtime when office workers from Brown Bayleys Steelworks flooded across the road. Saturdays were also busy as lots of Pakistanis congregated and socialised round our large collection of books in Urdu, which we bought from the Rolex Trading Company in Bradford. We were also approached by a Mr Mehta from Delhi Public Library who offered to supply books cheaper than Rolex. We took advantage of this though there was some resistance to Urdu books from India as Pakistan and India were not the best of friends! We also subscribed to the Mashriq magazine and the Daily Jang newspaper, and we bought a lending copy of the Koran. This was approved of but a special shelf was required as  the Koran could not be next to “sexy books for boys and women.”  A sign in Urdu suddenly appeared requesting readers to treat the book with the utmost respect. Also the shelf suddenly acquired a purple baize cloth. All without any consultation! To find out more about Asian reading interests. I drew up a questionnaire which a lecturer translated into Urdu. Another development was a small collection of books in Arabic which may have been the first in the country.

Saturday lunch I used to nip to the Travellers pub on Attercliffe Common for a pint and a sandwich. Every week, a pedlar used to walk in bringing  a suitcase with him. He would open his case on a table and start with his patter: "Now then, gents, some nice nylons for the ladies." Drinkers  would gather round and  buying would start. This happened every Saturday and I supposed the pedlar would visit dozens of pubs to earn a living. (I have never seen such a business anywhere else).

SPELSA

Now for a change of subject. Sheffield Public Library Staff Association used to organise various events. There were visits to the University Library, visits to special libraries in industry, a Brains Trust was a regular, so were wine and cheese parties (with cheap wine). A snooker table was bought for the common room, footballs for the library team and equipment for the cricket team. The library ladies had an annual cricket match against the men and once there was a mixed five a side football competition at Bramall Lane! (When Mike Hudson asked me where we were getting changed, I couldn’t resist directing him to the ladies changing room! There was uproar!)

Mike was a fine fast bowler for the library team which played in a league and also played friendly matches against other libraries. The library football team also played friendlies against other libraries. For four seasons, the football team played in the Sheffield  Regional Sunday League Division 4 and finished bottom every year, though we once humiliated the top team by beating them! I scored twice. We even got a headline in the Green ‘Un: “Libraries Beat League Leaders.” I guess they took some stick about that! When they later played us on our home ground, they thrashed us 10-1. Because we used to lose all the time, most of the librarians dropped out and were replaced by better players from friends and neighbours. Alan Woodroffe and Steve Waterhouse made occasional appearances, but the regular players from the library service were Trevor Finch, Mike Surr, Steve Carney and myself. Trevor Finch organised the team. Eventually he moved to Doncaster Central Lending Library.

Bit of bragging coming up now. In the changing room after a friendly match against Rotherham Libraries, our Assistant Personnel Officer said: “What about Keith Morris?” (I was stood behind him – so he didn’t know I was there). “He showed touches of real class; flashes of brilliance.” I liked what I heard, but then it slowly dawned on me: he supported Sheffield United, so he dint know owt about football!

Greenhill Library

This was a very busy library especially on Fridays and Saturdays. Sometimes on Friday nights we had to work until 8.10pm or even 8.15 to catch up with the backlog of filing issues. We were actually paid to 8.15 in case we had to stay till then though. Greenhill became an area library at one time and the Area Librarian was universally known as Paddy. She was very organised and was a Tartar to work for: on one occasion she told me to have a word with Anita who was going to the toilet too often!

One night we had a loud drunk in the library. Not only was he loud, he was using bad language too. Greenhill readers were very polite, so I lured the oaf into the office out of the way of the public.  Puzzled readers could still hear him though and kept asking what was going on. Eventually, I was able to usher him out of the back door.

Paddy’s full name was Bernice Padley but nobody called her Bernice. She was captain of the ladies cricket team when they played the men. And she was a good bat. She was a great fan of Geoffrey Boycott, opening bat for Yorkshire and England. She always spoke of him with an awed voice, calling him Geoffrey and never Boycott. Paddy was a season ticket holder at Sheffield Wednesday and in later years I often saw her in the South Stand at Hillsborough.

Paddy constantly had running battles with Assistant Director, Alex R. Shawyer. He was famously short tempered, sarcastic and bitter. Paddy‘s nickname for him was Adolf! She also pointed out that his initials fitted him very neatly!

The Various Directors of Sheffield City Libraries

When I started work in Sheffield, John Bebbington was City Librarian. He was a quiet man, a bit remote; I didn’t have anything to do with him. I do remember one important decision he made: he ruled that hot pants were not appropriate for library assistants! (In those days, we men were expected to wear ties). His deputy was more interesting. W. Howard Davies was a tubby little Welshman who wrote a standard library textbook on classification. He interviewed me and gave me a job as trainee librarian; at the interview he did all the talking. He subsequently told the cricket team that he had appointed a good cricketer who had been captain of cricket at school. He was wrong about that.

Bob Atkins took over from Bebbington but was termed Director of Libraries. He was a very affable librarian and good looking according to some of the female staff, including Paddy. I don’t think Bob was an innovator though: he was too easy going.

Enid Hattersley was chair of the library committee at this time; she was the mother of Roy Hattersley who was Deputy Prime minister. She didn’t like me: we had to close Hillsborough Library for an hour at Saturday lunch; Enid always wanted to linger on but I was eager to get off for a quick pub lunch. She was  rather annoyed when I pointed out we were closing for lunch.  (Peter Bayliss, the previous librarian, used to let her stay and  chat. Good for his career, wasn't it?).

Keith Crawshaw was the next Director. He was a big fellow with a booming personality. Like me he was a Worksop lad, and I was very amused by a headline in a Worksop paper: “Local Bookworm Gets Top Job.” If we had a friendly against another library, Keith would sometimes play in goal. But amazingly for a Worksop lad his game was hockey! Early on in his library career, Keith had a few months in Admin. One day, he and Monica Sergeant were unable to balance the ice cream account for the Library Theatre. No matter what they tried, they just had too many ice creams. “Well, there is only one thing to do,” announced Keith, ‘we’ll just have to eat ‘em!”   Last I heard of him he was Director of Leisure. So that’s one Wassop lad who done well!

Pat Coleman. Pat became Director of Libraries and Information Services and was very approachable, at least in the beginning. “Call me Pat,” she said to everyone. She was able to sweet talk the library committee into an amazing number of new developments. The service really stepped forward under her vision. She promoted a much younger group of librarians choosing staff for their abilities and not for their professional qualifications or their length of service. It didn’t last too long. With the advent of stringent cuts in the council budget, there were reductions in opening times and library closures. The budget cuts became all important and staff relations became a low priority. And many staff chose to leave.

George Robson, Area Librarian at Manor

Stepping back a few years, George Robson was Area Librarian at Manor Library.  Elderly George was an oddity, riding around his area on a little motorbike. When the library van arrived with deliveries, he would get over excited, rushing off to deal with it straightaway. On Thursdays, when the library was closed all day, he would be busy doing the work of Jayne Williams, his capable assistant. When Jayne came to work on a Friday, she had nothing to do: George had done it all. He was very serious about classical music but another hobby was less classical. He loved to talk about his budgie, and one tale used to leave staff shuddering: he used to put bird seed on his tongue for the budgie to take!

The libraries George was responsible for were Handsworth, Park, Gleadless, Frecheville, Hackenthorpe and part time libraries at Beighton and Mosboro. Plus a school library at Westfield Comprehensive. I was sub-librarian under George.

At George’s retirement do, we presented him with a Spectrum computer. George was delighted.

“Memoirs of an Erk”

This was the title of George Robson’s war memories which he typed up on his Spectrum computer. It was very interesting to read but it was never published. In WW2, erk was the slang for an aircraftsman. In the mid 1940s, radar was a new development. George trained on fitting early radar sets into aircraft. Training courses for this hush-hush kit ran 24 hours a day 7 days a week. George recounts squads of young men marching to their classrooms even at 2am – all singing their heads off while they were marching. (Bet the songs were very fruity!). Fitting the bulky radar sets in a cramped cockpit was no easy matter. George said he was sometimes hanging by his knees while he fixed the kit. The pilots would make encouraging remarks: “You’re wasting your time, pal. That thing’s no good – we don’t use it.” George would reply “Orders is orders.” Two or three months later, he would be there again removing the old kit and replacing with the latest radar set developed by the boffins. Life on an airfield was dangerous, George said. Not from enemy aircraft though. Erks sometimes needed to move an aircraft across the airfield and could lose control. A runaway aircraft was very dangerous, and the erks occasionally had to rush out of their huts to avoid a runaway plane.

Manor Library

This large spacious library at Manor Top was opened in 1953 though building started before WW2. During my time there, it overtook Ecclesall Library to become the busiest branch library in Sheffield. I took great pride in this and used to boast it really was Manor TOP Library.

We were open 4 nights a week until 8pm, but the evenings were pretty quiet and we usually closed up shop a few minutes early. On one occasion I was driving down the Parkway when the 8 o’clock time signal came over my car radio!

In the early days, there was a coke fired boiler, and a janitor was used to look after the boiler and do odd jobs. In my time, there was an oil fired boiler; we used to check the level in the tank and phone for a tanker delivery which would come a week later. In the stairwell were two pumps used to circulate hot water round the underfloor heating. Every Monday, we had to switch over the pumps to even out wear.

On cold Monday mornings in winter, the library was always cold (58 degrees F) and staff often threatened to walk out. The clever chaps in Energy Control had installed time clocks on the boiler to save money. However, a heating engineer established that the heating system was designed to slowly heat the structure over 24 hours. This was totally inconsistent with the boiler being timed off overnight and on Sundays. Once the time clocks were exterminated, the heating worked very well.

One day when I was bored, I investigated a mysterious access hole 4 ft off the ground in the stairwell. It gave access to the under floor hot water pipes and various valves. It was a huge area but with headroom of three feet, I soon ended my odyssey on hands and knees (wearing the janitor’s coat). I am not sure that the Area Sub Librarian should have wasted time crawling around under the floor!

Manor was an interesting building. Access to the roof was gained by a high steel ladder and through sliding open a hatch. The roof was well worth exploring. Window cleaners used to go up the ladder to wash the glass barrel roof over the lending library. They actually used to walk over the barrel roof. The small glass cubes in the barrel roof were 5 inches thick – I  walked on them myself – somewhat nervously! One evening just before closing, Lu Colton. the children’s librarian, spotted a youth on the roof. A policeman and I climbed the ladder on to the roof but the youth had scarpered. The roof had a padlocked room which contained the header tank for the heating system. The local lads had forced the padlock and were using the tank room as a den; something which was evident by the beer cans and fag ends. Public Works Dept  then came along and coated the fall pipes with anti-climb paint.

The spacious children’s library had it’s own entrance down by the side of the building. One day two young women taking their little kids to the library had a fright when a flasher emerged from the shrubbery by the kiddies entrance. They were very annoyed at their little girls seeing such a thing. As we waited for the police, I said: ”The police will need a description. Can you remember what he looked like?”  The reply was: “No, I dint look at his face!”  Then both women burst out giggling!

Early one Sunday morning, the Area Librarian was fetched out of his bed by the police: they had tried the door to the Library and found it open. They checked the building for intruders but all was well. A somewhat casual Peter Farrell had closed the library Saturday afternoon and had forgotten to lock the door. The Area Librarian, George Robson, was far from amused!

One day the police came in and reported they had spotted a small time thief sitting on the canal bank reading a book. The alert copper noticed a book card still on the book and promptly made an arrest. The guy was a regular in the library twice a week – always ready to say “morning”. What we didn’t know was that he watched until we were tied up with something and then he walked out with the book he was looking at.

When a Tattletale security system was introduced in Central Lending to deter thieves, what it actually did was  to make them choose Manor Library instead. We were puzzled why so many people with computer tickets from Central were joining Manor. (We were still on Browne issue charging and their computer tickets were no use with us). All libraries carried out sample stocktaking. Our figures were very good until the security system was introduced in Central; then the missing stock figures soared at Manor. Of course, management had no interest in how their expensive security system had just made book thieves gyrate to Manor Library.

Now, the Lower Manor did not have too good a reputation, so an enterprising curate called Ray Draper devised a festival to help improve its reputation.  One event Ray organised was a fair on the Lower Manor one Saturday afternoon – I  took a display down  with some publicity material. Some of the books were swiped off the display!! The Star did a front page spread about this novel festival, and Ray persuaded the newspaper to let us have the printing block for the front page. This was then displayed in the foyer of the library for many years.

Also on the Lower Manor, a young woman called Claire set up the Manor Rights and Advice Service. I served on the management committee and was asked about having sessions in the library. Deputy Director David Bromley ruled that we could not offer the library but if we were  approached the answer would be positive. A sign of the times, I guess. Claire did then hold advice sessions in the library but I soon moved on from Manor TOP LIBRARY.

Hillsborough Library

This was a much quieter library than Manor and was still on the Browne manual issue system. Plessey 7050 was about to be introduced, and four librarians (Mike Surr, Dave Spencer, myself and Wendy Coker) were sent to the computer room in the Central Library  to explore the new system, which was only partly online. We were then tasked with training staff at each library when they went live. I wrote a user manual for the new system.

While at Hillsborough I was on the management committee of Middlewood CAB. At one meeting a guy said we should increase the pay of the manager: "After all, we pay her very little for all she does." I was shocked that "very little" was actually what I was being paid. Made me wonder what sort of salary the guy was on! Of course, I nodded agreement to the manager's increase in pay, pretending I was much better paid! (The CAB had weekly sessions in Hillsborough Library).

Firth Park Library

This was the old library building at the bottom end of the park, near the disused paddling pool. Andrew Millroy was a very enterprising area librarian. Soon after I moved to Firth Park, Andrew did a major re-vamp of the building, putting in a community room with kitchen and toilets. There was also a computer club room with old 5 inch floppy disk computers. The community room had a luncheon club, a ladies craft group and an Asian girls youth club run by an Asian community worker who had an office in the community room. Another enterprising area librarian was Martin Dutch. With his help, I re-launched the computer club with state of the art Apple Mac computers and a laser printer. We had the latest software as well.

There were other launches too. In 1992 I arranged the launch in the community room of a new book by Betty Dickinson called “Never Far From Wincobank Hill.”  (Betty was famous in Sheffield for her book “Shantytown’). In 1994 came another  launch: “Pawnshop on Monday.”  Two retired librarians, Christine Bolsover and Margaret Rutherford, interviewed elderly patients on respite care at Northern General. The resulting book called “Pawnshop on Monday” was published by the Hallamshire Press and was a best seller. I was very proud of this initiative.

We had regular break-ins at Firth Park Library which backed on to a wood. The police used to say "they know you have an alarm, they know how long they have got before we arrive. They are just practising on you." Eventually metal grilles were fixed to all the rear and side windows. Must have cost a bomb or two.

Mobile and Special Services

Mobile & Special had a garage and offices at Handsworth opposite the church. Head of the department was Ivor Vincent who was soon re-deployed to Ecclesall Library as part of savings being made by Pat Coleman. I became head of the Mobile Library section while John Lambert was head of the Housebound Service and the book service to care homes. (We didn't get any extra money for being in charge).

The Mobiles consisted of 3 large mobile libraries and a smaller one which served farms, isolated cottages and country houses. Our three HGV drivers were expected to do much overtime aided with relief drivers from the Central Transport Dept. Relief drivers were often not available, so I started using drivers from an agency. One of the agency drivers was very popular with the mobile staff, and I was  pleased to be able to appoint him to a permanent post; Alan Calvert was a great improvement on an unpleasant driver who we were pleased to see retire. Admin thought agency drivers were expensive. As a result, Joy and Anita trained for their HGV licences. As they were the first library assistants in the country to become HGV drivers and take charge of 30ft mobile libraries, the Star came and made a feature about this.

A few other service developments stick in my mind. I completely reorganized the 100 or so mobile library stops something which nobody else had the nerve to do. The traveller service to farms and country houses was vulnerable to cuts, I thought. So I moved it to a monthly schedule instead of fortnightly which allowed us to take a service to playgroups and sheltered housing; this was a big improvement in our services. We also trialled taking slideshows to sheltered housing.

Pat Coleman, Director, then asked me to give priority to design a container library which could be used to replace part time libraries at Beighton, Mosborough and Oughtibridge. The container library had a bigger stock than a mobile library, had air-conditioning, a microwave and a toilet. It was put on site by a contractor who also filled the water tank and emptied the waste water tank.

Despite these developments, I was soon out of a job! Pat Coleman’s management team were focussed on reorganizing the service to save money. We minor librarians were instructed to make a presentation to the management team on a topic of their choice. Never confident with public speaking and waffling, I decided not to make a presentation... and soon found myself out of work. I eventually took over the Hospital Library Service with books and activities at Northern General, the Hallamshire, Middlewood, Weston Park and Nether Edge.

After some time, I enquired about early retirement – only to be told by Personnel that there was no money for this. A week later, Personnel said they could let a few people go. On a Friday afternoon, I took in an application and the next day I went off on a skiing holiday. When I returned from holiday, there was a letter saying I had been accepted. I finished there and then to my delight.

So I gleefully retired at the age of 51. Although I was given early retirement, management neglected to explain that I would need unemployment benefit. Signing on the dole was necessary!

If you have read all this stuff, well done – and pour yourself a stiff drink! 

FINIS

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