SHEFFIELD CARRIES ON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26175, 11 June 1946, Page 6

SHEFFIELD CARRIES ON

(Special) LONDON, June 6. England looked very lush and green on the dull day that I travelled north. By the time I was approa hing Chesterfield the horizon was dirty silver and the canopy overhead blackishgrey, heavy with threatening rain and the colour of smoke. The landscape changed; there was a colliery on the right, and from the yard, with its medley of wagons and locomotives, a dozen puffs of steam and smoke arose in bursts as though soundless explosions occurrerd; On my left were two small conical hills of pit refuse bearing straggling, thin vegetation, and a third slag heap was smoking in pat- hes from a h re in the refuse not y et outi I noted as of old patches of water lying red as rust, and small fields wherein stand huts built of odds and ends—evidence of this northern habit formed in war-time of “ making do.”

We ran past scattered stacks of pigiron billets, pale-brown in hue, like faggots of wood, brown touched with grey and blue. The furnace, with its old grey sheeted-metal sides, had at mid-day half a dozen gold lights shining like inflinitesimal stars, and from varous pipes plumes of steam spurted. The darkness inside was suddenly broken by a flare fountain of pretty sparks. The iron mill had a new and mighty crane, big as that in the shipyards building leviathans. Dry Humour It is a grim place, this northern midlands, and there is not much beauty to be found in Sheffield,, this city I was bound for, this city as famous for its steel as Essen was dr Pittsburg is; this famed steel that Chaucer knew (for he made a Canterbury Pilgrim carry a Sheffield whittle in his hose); this steel which has made the saying “ right Sheffield ” as good a mark of quality as “A L at Lloyds.” No, not much beauty in Sheffield, but a raciness of character and warmth of heart and dry humour, the last exemplified in two furnacemen riding home in a tram. The seat was none too wide and the smaller man, having been edged off once or twice, looked up at his burly companion and said: . “ It’s a pity they don’t charge fares by weight.” The giant looked down and said slowly: “ Good job for thee they don’t—they’d never stop tram to pick thee up.”

I spent yesterday in an engineering shop I once visited soon after its roof was blown off in winter by the Luftwaffe, when the machinemen then proceeded to carry on in sou’westers and oilskins. Even now the roof’s not back to normal, and work goes on in perpetual electric light. Three or four hundred part-time women and married women whose husbands have returned from the war have now departed as part of the post-war reshuffle and men from the war are coming back—one who worked on the bench and became a naval engineer officer is now in the drawing office; a major from the army has become a safety- device officer and has not yet lost the habit of writing reports to his superiors. This engineering works, with 1200 people, has well over a million pounds’ worth of orders, and these people who never put In less than fifty-three hours a week during six years of war, are hard

Plans for To-morrow

By James Lansdale Hodson

at it. The output is rising and is probably 90 per cent, of what it was at its best. So the works manager told me. He thought it is pretty general in engineering, this rising curve. But 1 could personally understand the rise being slow—with food rather worse, bread rationing looming up. cigarettes scarcer, and income tax eased but little. The works manager spoke to the foremen and the men in groups. Did they agree that the pre-war standard of living was too low? Did they realise Britain had lost some 500 millions sterling a year in dividends paid to this country from overseas that were gone forever—spent in paying for the war? Did they want to ensure the success of new measures for better education, better health, and medical services, more social security. And .f so, how was it all to be done except bv a higher output? ‘The Workshop Committee on which sit the management and men s leaders, shop stewards, Sports Asso iation, Drama Society—these are part of the modern industrial setup. Plan for the Future At least one new factory is being built to produce cutlery on something nearer mass-production than Sheffield has known hitherto, a factory to employ 1000 people. And one or two heavy steel firms are wondering bow they are to find space to extend, if they wish to, for the existing Sheffield was never planned, and the railways and canals and rows of houses often hem work in. Maybe the plan for Sheffield will help this plan to bring some beauty and order into the city plan, spurred on by the blitz whrh has left parts of the town in ruins like ancient Rome. The first steps to give statutory authority to the plan are just being taken, and concurrent with that they hope by the months end to have 500 temporary houses finished, and by the vear’s end 1000 permanent ones, some of whrh will certainly be carried to the site in sections and hoisted into position m chunks, remindful of the way Kaiser built ships 113 the U S.A. But those 1500 are but a morsel of the need. Fourteen thousand names are on the waiting lists, 3u, 000 houses are planned for. Fine things are being done—of 2000 acres for housing 600 acres are devoted to schools, so there’ll be lots of open space. Sheffield has its liyely minds—one, for example, controlling the libraries which are striving to teach children about to leave school how to use those tools of knowledge, books, and especially how to use the central library, with its commercial and techni-al departments in addition to its le jf ing and reference sections. Childrerf are shown over that library and taught how to use catalogues, how to find what they want, how to use encyclopaedias, various dictionaries, year books and almanacs, and that wealth of 530 reference books that lie on open shelves. Meanwhile, Sheffield goes on, with its slogging, hard work, furnaces flaring, myriad chimneys poluting the air, steel and rails and engineering* goods. And thoughtful citizens here and there ask if the Government cannot decentralise some of its departments and send them to the city to help increase the middle-class, of which Sheffield is a trifle short.