Memories
My Treeton
I was very interested to see pictures of myself amongst your photographic memories.
My maiden name is Jean Hitchen. I was born in Treeton in 1940 at 20 Arundel Avenue. Our next door neighbours - at No 22 were Betsy and Harold Clegg and their two sons, Norman and Harold. We shared the same path and gateway from the road.
Mrs Clegg was my Godmother. I remember her sister, 'Aunty' Beattie Frost - a very gracious, kind and genteel lady who crowned me as Treeton Methodist Sunday School Queen. The ceremony took place on the Rectory lawn at the top of Washfield Lane on 16th May 1953 - a very windy Saturday afternoon, We had to move into the Sunday School building later on because the inevitable rain came.
Crowning of May Queen,1953
My paternal Grandmother and Grandfather, Emily and Robert Hitchen, lived in 'top Bole Hill', moving from Guilthwaite, near Whiston, Rotherham, in the early 1900s. They had a daughter, Gladys, and three sons, Ernest (my father), Stephen and Gilbert (all now deceased). Their house was demolished in the 1970s along with the rest of the Bole Hill houses. Rotherham Council deemed them too costly to refurbish.
Gladys married George Sheard from Catcliffe. My two uncles never married.
My mother came from Swallownest. Her father was a miner at Thurcroft pit. She had relatives in Bole Hill. Her brothers all worked at local pits/coke ovens. Both sets of my great-grandfathers had moved to the area (the maternal one from Dudley and the other from Newcastle) to work at local collieries.
Grandfather Hitchen and my two uncles worked down Treeton pit. My father was office-based, retiring in 1968 as Manager's Clerk after 52 years' service there. My brother, Derek Hitchen, worked in the Joiners' Shop. He died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism at home in June 1970 aged 39, just three months after the sudden death of my father who had a heart attack. Derek's death was as a result of a foot fracture he sustained at work.
My brother was a well-know local sportsperson, being greatly involved in Treeton Cricket Club where he was 2nd team captain and treasurer. He was a great believer in encouraging youngsters to become involved in the sport and was, at the time of his death, Chairman of the Sheffield and District Junior Cricket League. A six-a-side tournament is held annually at Treeton in his memory for under-15s from the Sheffield district.
I have many memories of my childhood days in Treeton - some happy, some sad, some good and some bad. We were a very close-knit community and all looked out for each other. Everybody knew everybody else's business but today, this kind of behaviour is looked upon as intrusive and is unwelcome. We had our own kind of 'welfare state' where everyone helped each other and looked out for one another. This also acted as today's equivalent of a 'neighbourhood watch' scheme to prevent crime and youth nuisance - something sadly missing today.
I attended Woodhouse Grammar School which I left in 1956 to work in clerical administration at Steel Peech & Tozer (later British Steel) on Sheffield Road at The Ickles. All that is left of this once thriving giant steelworks is the Magna Centre.
The whole environment of the area has changed dramatically over the past 30-odd years. Our ancestors would not recognise it were they to return.
Whilst it is pleasantly nostalgic to reminisce and yearn for those halcyon days (which always now seem better than they actually were through the process of mellowing with age!), we have to come to terms that we must accept changes and move forward, remembering that, for those born in the present era, this will be their past heritage in the decades to come.