Scrapbook

A collection of newspaper cuttings and other Bentley related ephemera and memorabilia.

Newspaper Cuttings

Smoke-filled memories of the Bentley Triangle

Unknown newspaper article from 1991 by Stephen McClarence 

The Bermuda Triangle is not news. The Bentley Triangle may be. 

I used to live in it, 15 years ago - up on the North West Frontier of Doncaster, over the river and under the railway bridge ... and it's the smoking you remember.

The bus to Bentley, every last window shut, and four dozen people with fags in their mouths. Hermetically sealed nicotine. Dense smoke swirling over the shopping bags and the kiddies' pushchairs, fathers smoking, mothers smoking, kiddies smoking, plastic cigarettes stuck in the kiddies' dolls' mouths.

"Got a fag?" says one whippet to another as we trundle over North Bridge, a gigantic filter tip on wheels. The whole bus coughs in unison at the end of Royston Avenue.

You'd go to the doctor - long wooden benches in the waiting room full of people smoking. If you went in with a cold, you came out with bronchitis.

Now I can't vouch for the doctor's waiting room, but 15 years on, the buses seem to be smoke free - even if the rest of the Bentley Triangle looks quite startlingly unchanged. 

No cheap jokes, please. Motorists may sometimes drive into the Triangle and never come out again. It may occasionally seem a place where hopes mysteriously wilt and die.

But it isn't. The Bentley Triangle - a triangle (aptly enough) of roads - is the site of a proposed business and leisure park, with hotel, conference centre, cinema, restaurant and filling station. some of those will be new to Bentley.

Bordered by York Road, Bentley Road and Watch House Lane, the Triangle includes a school, a rugby ground, a stretch of grassland and my old flat over the greengrocers.

Selective memories of my three and a half years there have come dribbling back this week thanks to A Journey into the Past, a newly published book of photographs from Bentley-With-Arksey Heritage Society.

Bentley-with-Arksey! What a glorious coupling of communities! And what a misleading one.

Bentley - red bricked and grey-slated, terraces and back alleys and corner shops selling thick-sliced bread and altogether dusty and urban and sprawling, but not quite a town and certainly not a village.

And Arksey - very much a village with its buff stone cottages and its semis and its medieval church, respectably - oh how respectably - poised between suburbia and the limitless flat-field countryside north of Doncaster.

Bentley-Without-Arksey really. But Bentley-With-Arksey it is - and was, in the days of Bentley-With-Arksey Urban District Council, or Bentley-With-Arksey UDC (which I always imagined must be a sort of milk).

Coffins

This was local government at its most urban and district and a grand name to have engraved on silver cups to be presented at Bentley Carnival.

The Carnival, one sunny September Saturday afternoon in the early 1970's was my first taste of a local Show. It was brass bands and baby contests, bouncy pit head gear and leeks laid reverently out on tressle tables for old men in collapsed flat caps to muse over.

They grew them on Bentley Allotments, where more old men turned wooden huts into second homes and brewed tea in blackened kettles and spent whole days, apart from slipping home for dinner with soil-soiled potatoes wrapped in the newspaper I worked for.

With the bile-curdling smell from the animal by-products factory lingering on its street corners on warm afternoons and still summer evenings, it seemed a community preserved magically intact from the 1940's.

And its nicely recalled in A Journey into the Past, the £3.75 result of many Friday night Heritage Society meetings at Bentley Library over the past three years.

Forty pages of pictures of rural byways and everybody dolled up for chapel anniversary services and the Daw Wood Rangers and the New Village Ladies Football team and, a few pages on, an amazing picture - 20 coffins in a communal grave for the 1931 Bentley Pit Disaster. 

Windows with net curtains and children in fancy dress to celebrate the launch of the Daily Herald and floods every other week and the soup kitchens for the general strike and the NUM banner on the march and children on picket duty at the 1913 Bentley School strike.

But not one bus. And no-one smoking.

Strange Tales From Bentley

Unknown newspaper article from June 1992

George Hemsley of Bentley and Arksey Heritage Society lectured to pupils and over 60's at Don Valley School recently. He illustrated his talk - based on tape recordings - with pictures provided by fellow member Doug Scattergood. They invited ALAN BERRY to listen in. This is an edited version.

George used to be a miner down Bentley. A Councillor, too. Retired now. Everyone in the village knows George; goes round talking to the old folk, recording what they tell him of the early days. Putting it on tape, transcribing it. For posterity.

George would fix up to have a chat with this elderly lady, that old gentleman. They'd get kettle on, and they'd fetch out the cardboard box full of owd photographs, and they'd talk. Talk the teapot dry, talk until the sun went down ... About their families, the births and the deaths, the pit disaster, the floods, the poverty. The good times and the bad and sad times. And talk especially about Bentley and Toll Bar, in the early days, when a rural idyll, through which ran a sparkling mill stream, became a colliery village.

"I'm not a good speaker" warns George. "I'll do my best."

But they listen enraptured. they have lived through these times; this is their story, told their way.

First, the man who tells George all about the bus service (or lack of it).

" I first came to Toll Bar in 1916. We were part of the exodus from Nottingham and Derby to the Eldorado called Yorkshire. Mother, four children and the youngest two months old, three trains to get to Doncaster. Then a two-mile walk to Toll Bar on a damp dreary night ..."

After detailing all the bus operators for over 50 years, we learn about Jim Holmes.

" Jim Holmes was a coal dealer delivering home coal. He advanced from horse and cart to a two-ton petrol lorry. After tea he swept it, washed it, and put on it a makeshift bus body; sort of a shed with a door at the end and six upholstered seats, either side, and some steps."

"The only illumination was a tiny bulb that was also the rear light. He used this contraption to ferry people to Doncaster from 5.30 to midnight.

Next, the terrors of a first day down the mine for a child of 14.

"I left school in 1924, saw the under manager, got a job. Monday morning I was given a seven pound lamp, made my way to the gantry, to the onsetter, then the cage. Down for the first time. It was terrible. By the time I got to the pit bottom I was absolutely scared stiff. In some places there were no lights at all. I had to open ventilation doors for the pony drivers, then I learned pony driving, pulling tubs, 15cwt of coal. Then they took me off pony driving."

"They said I was too old, and an agitator. I heard it said that a horse was more value to Barber Walker (the mine owners) than a man ..."

"When we were on short time they put a notice up saying 'This colliery has six days work this month.' They didn't tell you which days the six were going to be."

"If there was going to be no afternoon shift, starting at 2pm the pit buzzer would go three times at noon. You had to wait for the buzzer to know if there'd be work."

"If there were no work, we'd sign on for half a crown a day unemployment. If we worked two days, there was three days unemployment. If we worked three days, there was none."

"We had to boil water for the menfolks' bath in the houses. In a family of miners, there was always a rush to be the first in the bathwater. Old miners didn't care much for pithead baths. they'd never wash their backs. They said having a bath every day gave them a bad back."

"Everyone had bad backs. In the Dunsil you couldn't straighten up. I allus had four slices of bread and dripping for snap. And a bottle of cold water. You ate where you were working. I stayed on the face until I had a bad accident. A slab of roof came down. I just couldn't get out of the way ..."

George records an elderly lady:

I lived in Railway cottages when there was a Bentley brewery, I remember cottages called Piccadilly and Little London."

"Cows were herded through the village. Mother used to boil milk at night with lumps of fat bacon in it and we didn't get colds like they do today. There was always plenty of milk and a big piece of beef on the table."

"Nurse Woodhouse was midwife. If you were walking along and you were going to want the midwife 'cos you were pregnant and you saw her passing on her bike you just put your hand up, and she knew you were pregnant. She put your name in her little book to visit you."

"I remember Bentley Joss ( a local character) and Sally Blacking Tin. She used to have blacking (black lead for grates) and we used to shout 'Sally Blacking Tin' and run off. She was after us. She had a knife ..."

And another elderly lady goes on the record:

"We lived in a cottage where the Catholic Church is now. There was no ceiling. You could see tiles and rafters. When the wind blew there was a lot of dust and dirt."

"There was a pump on the side of the sink. No taps. For our washing water we had tubs near the toilet to catch the rain. In a bad summer dad took a barrel on a handcart to the mill dyke to wash ourselves."

An Arksey lady born 1909: 

"Water came from the pump. We used to do washing in the garden under the apple trees. It was so olde worldy. When they pulled our cottage down (in Almholme Lane) they moved the fireplace and cooking range and discovered a secret door and a secret room."

"I was brought up by my grandmother and one day she was pushing my pram when a lady on a white horse (gentry) asked her what was I to be called. she said 'If you call the child after me I will keep her in clothes for the rest of my life.' So I was kept in clothes until I grew up."

Book

A Journey Into The Past

A book published by Bentley With Arksey Heritage Society

 

The following is an unknown newspaper article about the publication of the book in 1991. By Alan Berry.

Encouraged by increasing public support, Bentley with Arksey Heritage Society is about to launch its first publication, A Journey Back in Time, and is preparing a major exhibition at its own heritage centre in August (1991). The Society will also join with others in the village events commemorating the Bentley Pit Disaster 60 years ago in November. Alan Berry talks to members Lynn Jackson, Deb Hagland and Padraig Madden.

"The Right Honourable Doncaster Josse" - such is the caption - faces the camera for what is probably the one and only picture of him ever taken. Roughly clad, stick over his shoulder, unsmiling, this, they will tell you at Bentley with Arksey Heritage Society, is the man after whom Jossey Lane is named.

Jossey Lane, home for hundreds, known to thousands, runs from Bentley to Scawthorpe and few, if any, of its residents may never give a thought to Josse or Jossey, the man they commemorate every time they write down their address.

But his full length photograph will be one of many, most of them unpublished, to appear in A Journey Back in Time. Bentley with Arksey Heritage Society's first publication due in early August.

Illegitimate

Legend has it - "and we would wish to be very careful about this," says Lynn Jackson (archivist) Padraig Madden (publicity) and Deb Hagland - that Doncaster Josse, or Bentley Josse as he was also called, lived in a hut in what is now called Jossey Lane around the turn of the century, and that he was the illegitimate son of a distant member of the Battie-Wrightson family.

And the story also goes ("and we have done our research among the local community") that once a month a member of that ancient family long associated with Cusworth Hall would meet "Josse" in the street and pay him an allowance.

Every member of the Society has contributed something to this 40 page volume, which is largely sepia photographs and crisp captions. We have more than enough pictures, say the members, but we are sure that there are still many Bentley and Arksey people who have fine photographs hidden away. These would form the nucleus of the exhibition which will open in conjunction with the book launch. An aerial view of Bentley about 1926 is one such photograph recently discovered.

But new pictures are always turning up in the most unexpected places. Deb Hagland was at Newark Fair a couple of weeks ago, and came across a photograph about 1900 of Finkle Street as a lane with a stile. "The man wanted £6; I beat him down to a fiver." That will be in the book, along with Josse and a lot more.

Like the funeral cortege passing through the floods, the coffin seemingly about to float off; like the New Village Ladies Football Club of 1921; or Bentley Mill, mill chimney and pond.

Enlargements of some of these pictures will also be available to order, either framed or mounted.

Bentley with Arksey are more fortunate than some of the now numerous similar societies. they have their own heritage centre HQ in Bentley Library, where they meet every Friday. A loan of £1,600 by their president, Sir David Cooke of Harrogate, whose family connection with the area goes back 500 years, will be repaid through sales of the book (price forecast, about £3.50).

The society has not yet got down to much serious history-writing. As Lynn says: "We are not yet in a position to begin the big one, but that will come. The material, especially our recording of personal memoirs, is building up."

Meanwhile photographers like Padraig, who has a professional interest in old photographs, and Doug Scattergood are recording the changing scene in Bentley today.

In November this year, however, all Bentley will look back to the village's darkest hour - that day, 60 years ago, when 43 men were killed in an explosion at the colliery.

Disaster

The society, through Padraig, its press and publicity officer, is asking for photographs, memories, pieces of information, any kind of memorabilia so that a complete picture can be built up of events that day, and the aftermath.

"We know that the effects of the disaster continued long afterwards, we believe that widows had to beg money for their children's shoes; that some people were quite badly treated," said Padraig.

The society will have a joint exhibition with the help of British coal, the miner's unions and the church, at St Philip and St James's Church in Victoria Road. It will then move to Bentley Library, and may conclude at the pit itself.

There will be the usual memorial service, held every year, and other events when it is hoped that at some point the survivors or their relatives can be brought together. 

Newspaper Cuttings

Goodbye Mrs Brown

The Daily Express, 22 October 1962

 
Cheering, shouting and dancing down the street, scores of children follow Nurse Ann Brown. They are a few of the 4,000 shea has brought into the world during her 35 years as midwife at the pit village of Bentley, near Doncaster.

But now - with the birth of the 4,000th baby - she is retiring, aged 64. And this was the children's way of saying farewell to her, as Mrs Brown walked home from church yesterday.

Health officials and her colleagues are to say a formal "goodbye" later, and villagers are arranging a V.I.P. retirement party.

Said Mrs Brown: "It has been such a happy and yet sad week for me. I am happy that people should be so kind to me, but sad that I am retiring. It was a wonderful gesture by the children."

She has averaged 1,000 miles a year walking through the village streets. She cannot drive a car, and every time she tried a bicycle she fell off. Mrs Brown has twice delivered triplets and for the past few years has been delivering the children of babies she brought into the world.

Now she plans a very quiet retirement. "I feel I've earned it," she says "Mind you, I shan't object to delivering more babies in an emergency."

The line under the photo reads Nurse Ann Brown gets a Pied Piper-type farewell from some of the 4,000 children she has helped into the world.

3,500 owe their lives to the midwife who always walks 

Doncaster Gazette, Thursday 18th October 1962 

For 35 years a busy woman has covered the streets of Bentley on foot on errands which have literally meant life for many people - more than 3,500 in fact. In her neat and trim uniform she has become a figure as familiar to the population as the policeman and postmen, and far more intimately acquainted with those whom she serves. At the end of this month her tiring beat will terminate, for the W.R.C.C. Health Service's district midwife, Nurse Ann Brown, of Askern Road, officially retires. 

The actual date is October 28, a day before her 65th birthday. "But," says Nurse Brown "retirement will not mean a period of idleness, because I shall keep in contact with my colleagues and the many friends I have made, and will continue my work with the Doncaster branch of the Royal College of Midwives, of which I have been chairman for 12 years."

Born in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, Nurse Brown moved to Bentley with her young daughter in 1924, to join her late husband who three years previously had started work at Bentley Colliery. Although working as a miner, he was a keen member of the St John Ambulance service, which influenced Nurse Brown's decision to make midwifery a career. She went on a course of training at Liverpool and returned to Bentley in 1927 with her qualifications and ambitions.

"I seem to have got on with the people right from the start." Nurse Brown said, "I have always been pleased with their attitude towards me and the co-operation they have given. I have now brought considerably more than 3,500 babies into the world, including ten sets of twins and two sets of triplets. Strangely enough, the triplets all arrived the same year.

Friend to Hundreds

In the course of her duties, Nurse Brown must have walked "hundreds of miles" she says. She has never owned a cycle or a car, but has relied on the bus service and a pair of sturdy legs. 

"In my earlier years I had an accident when learning to ride a bicycle, and somehow never regained the confidence to ride again or learn to drive a car. But I have found walking a pleasant and healthy exercise, though nowadays, particularly on night calls, I rely on the county ambulance service which has been a great help."

Nurse Brown has been connected with Bentley child welfare clinic since it was established in the welfare park pavilion 32 years ago. She has been counsellor and friend to literally hundreds of mothers, many of whom will be joining Nurse Brown's colleagues and V.I.P.'s of the county health service at a farewell get-together they are planning for October 24 in the pavilion.

Memorabilia

Souvenir WW1 British Tank by Waterfall Heraldic China

Photos from Janet Roberts of a piece of Bentley memorabilia bought by her mother-in-law at a church table-top sale many years ago.

Pit Disaster Funeral Souvenir Serviette

Photo contribution from Janet Roberts 

Transcription

Souvenir in Affectionate Remembrance

of the

Miners

Who lost their lives in the Bentley Pit

Disaster, November 20th 1931

Buried at Arksey Cemetery, nr Bentley 25th November 1931

Henry Womack (43) Fisher Street, Bentley

G. Singleton (31) Raymond Street, Doncaster

J. W. Grain (15) Hawthorne Grove, Bentley

W. Pritchett (46) Balfour Road, Bentley

John Gallacher, Skellow

C. Wilcox (25) Beever Street, Goldthorpe

A. Hibbert, New Street, Bentley

R. T. Derrick (53) Frank Road, Doncaster

J. Pritchett (53) The Avenue, Bentley

J. R. Greaves, Balfour Road, Bentley

W. Farnsworth (34) Cromwell Road, Doncaster

S. W. Templeman (36) Cross Street, Bentley

H. Beastall, The Avenue, Bentley

T. Green (42) Arthur Street, Bentley

L. Guy (35) High Street, Bentley

W. Agnew (34) Holmshaw Terrace, Bentley

S. Mason, The Avenue, Bentley

J. H. Smith, Wheatley Park Road, Bentley

J. W. Rowe, Coney Road, Tollbar

W. Brocklehurst, Coney Road, Tollbar

T. Dove, Asquith Road, Bentley

John Brown, Doncaster

Ernest Cawood (50) Askdern (sic) Road, Bentley

Albert Huckerby, New Village, Bentley

Daniel Maloney, Grove Street, Adwick

H. Cheatham, Victoria Road, Bentley

Stanley Buxton, Toll Bar

Leonard Jones, Marsh Gate

James Leyland, Hall Gate, Doncaster

W. Middleton (31) Fisher Street, Bentley

Clifford Hayes (25) Cross Street, Bentley

John Callaghan (37) Morris Road, Balby

William Ward (41) Hawthorne Road, Bentley

James Allsop (26) Avenue, Bentley

Horace Windle (37) Acacia Road, Skellow

Harold Lawton (3..) Winnipeg Road, Bentley

Albert Barcock, Denby Street, Bentley

John Teck (Peck), Tollbar

John Llewellyn, Cromwell Road, Doncaster

T. Hopkinson, Daw Lane, Bentley

C. Atkinson, Asquith Road, Bentley

Leonard Sleath, address not known

John Brett, New Street, Bentley

"In the midst of life, we are in death"

The King's Message

"The Queen and I are shocked to hear of the disaster at the Bentley Colliery, and send our heartfelt sympathy to the families of those who have lost their lives so tragically."

Mr MacDonald, The Prime Minister, also sent a message of sympathy.

Advertisements

 

Book

Bentley-with-Arksey Urban District Official Guide

Published circa 1962

For a full transcription of these pages click here.

Newspaper Cuttings

Diamond Wedding for Former Doncaster Rovers Goalkeeper

Unknown publication

Courtesy of Jon Clay

Unbeaten Barber of Bentley

Unknown publication

Newspaper article of 1981,
inset photo, Frank, his wife Joan and one of their sons.

Transcription

Badly injured after 58 years in business, but Frank will carry on visiting sick, aged customers.

Bentley barber Frank Heath ended a lifetime of short cuts spanning six generations with a close shave last week.

Two weeks before he was to retire after a lifetime of cutting hair Frank was knocked unconscious and suffered five broken ribs and a badly bruised leg when his moped was in a collision with a beer tanker in Petersgate, Doncaster.

He has had to bring his retirement forward a few weeks.

Started at 11

"I have been on Bentley High Street for 51 years and I'm probably the oldest businessman in Bentley. I started up in business with my brother in 1923 - that's 58 years ago. He was 13 and I was 11." Said Frank.

He will still be keeping up his visits to the old and sick which he has done since he was 16.

"I have a few of the originals who have been coming to me since I started. There must be six generations in Bentley who have had their hair cut here," said Frank (69), at his shop in High Street, Bentley.

"I was born in North Staffs and my family moved to Yorkshire when I was one. My father worked at Bentley Colliery and I had eleven brothers and sisters."

"I'll Continue"

"We will be moving into Arksey Lane when things are settled. But I will still be continuing my round. Visiting those who cannot get out for a haircut. I have to visit one of my elderly customers three times a week to shave him," he said.

Frank and his wife Jean will be celebrating 40 years of marriage on New Years Eve. They have two sons and two grandchildren.

An old friend and retired barber, Mr Ernest Cheatham, of Sprotborough Road, Doncaster, cuts Frank's hair.

Caption under the photo:

"Tea Frank..." Frank Heath, feet up as he recovers from his accident, gets the cup that cheers from his wife, Jean.

Addendum: The news article states that Frank's wife was called Jean, however, her name was actually Joan.

Frank Heath (right) stands with his older brother Jack (middle) and father, Matthew Heath (left), outside the barber's premises at 55 High Street, Bentley. 

Many thanks to Daniel Williams.

Frank Heath outside the High Street shop
in 1930.
Photo courtesy of Graham Heath

Heath's shop at 78A High Street Bentley in 1932.
Photo courtesy of Graham Heath

Assorted Newspaper Cuttings And Photos 

Courtesy Of Suzy Deeley

March 26 1955

March 26 1955

1932

1937

1951

Nancy Derrick in 'Goodbye Mr Chips', Doncaster Rep

Nancy Derrick, Watch House Lane

Many thanks to Suzy Deeley

__________

Newspaper Cuttings

A ride down memory lane recalling top cycling times

Doncaster Free Press 13 Jun 2019

Visitors enjoyed a ride down memory lane at a display exploring Bentley and Arksey's rich cycling heritage.

Eileen Miles was amongst those who contributed about cycling through the years.

she said: "I was born at No. 1 High Street, Arksey, in 1942; when I was nine months old, I moved to 36 Winnipeg Road, with Mam and Dad, Flo and Jim Bowmar. My Dad worked down Bentley pit, my Mam worked at Peglers.

I got a three-wheel bike when I was four and I learned to ride it in the garden, up and down the street. There were hardly any cars so it was very safe.

My dog was a Pomeranian called Danny. He was very naughty when he first came to live at our house, he used to bite me! but I kept playing with him and after a while he would ride in the basket in my bike and I also used to dress him up in my doll's clothes and take him for a ride in my doll's pram.

He was very good and stayed in the bike basket or doll's pram while ever I stayed on the same side of the road as our house. If I crossed over, he jumped out and ran home.

I continued to ride a bicycle for fun and to go to school until I left Bentley High Street School when I was 15 years old."

Arthur Ball remembers cycling to his pit job.

He added: "After leaving my job at Bentley Pit I went all over looking for jobs, couldn't get a job nowhere. Upton then hadn't been going long. I went and 'no he said, you're too late me lad. We've set on all we want on today'. Come back next week, see what I can do for thee.' I went back next week, it were the same answer. I went to Armthorpe, Bullcroft, Brodsworth, Askern. I got a job at Askern. It was all done in shillings them days, eight shillings a day. I went on't bike to 'pit, about three and a half miles Bentley to Askern.

The doctors' surgery in them days was where the library is today, a little wooden hut. Joseph Walker and Lynn Walker came back end of 1909 I think it were. They'd only one bike between them both, they had an old one. One used to ride it one day and then the following day the other one would use it and the other would walk round."

Mrs Starr recalled: "There were two blacksmiths on Cooke Street, Yates and Maxfields. I've watched Mr Maxfield doing wheels in that there yard. He had a big round thing as big as this rug and it were full of water and he used to put the wheel in there. We used to stand hours watching him. We used to take a short cut through there to the post office and school. (A Passage from High Street to Cooke Street, now blocked off). Yates were further up, next to that big cottage that used to be nurse Woodhouse's. (The midwife).

If you were going to want her in them days in Bentley, if you saw her on her bike you only had to put your hand up and she knew you were pregnant again, she'd book you. She used to go on her bike all hours of the night, and I once said to her 'Well you don't mind going out in the middle of the night like that?' and she said 'Well if anybody had knocked me off my bike and they know what mission I'm on they would be bad."

Mrs Bullock remembers fondly cycling during her role as a postwoman.

She added: "My husband worked at Bentley Colliery and we lived down Millgate, right at the bottom next to the dyke. We lived there five years when my husband had to come out of the pit, he had a nervous breakdown. In the 1914-1918 war I became a postwoman. going to the post office yard first off to sort out the mail. Then I used to go on my bike and start at Toll Bar. After delivering all the mail in Toll Bar, I used to go to Hall Villa Lane to houses there then to different outlying farms towards Askern. All weathers. Then finally my husband made me give it up because it wasn't a fit job for a woman in winter."

Carol Baldwin, Secretary of Bentley with Arksey Heritage Society, is now appealing to other residents interested in the heritage of Bentley and Arksey heritage to contribute.

She added: "If you have any memories about cycling in or around the Bentley and Arksey area or you have any other memories you would like to share with us, we would love to hear from you.

Come and join us at one of our meetings upstairs in Bentley Area Community Library, Chapel Street. We're there every second Saturday of the month from 9.30 am till 11.30 am. You'd be most welcome.

The next heritage meeting takes place upstairs in Bentley Area Community Library, Chapel Street on July 13 (2019).

To find out more contact 01302 873863 or email carolannbaldwin@hotmail.com

__________

Doncaster's Mods Are The Tops

Doncaster Evening Post, 8 November 1966

Nothing seems to attract more attention from passers-by in the centre of Doncaster now-adays than the lines of "mod" scooters, parked tail-to-the-kerb.

The stares are often inspired by awe at the decks of spotlights and mirrors and equally as often by horror, with a mental flash-back to the mod-rocker battle of Brighton beach.

"Mods" - as anyone but a self-respecting mod would call them - are here in force despite the popular belief that they never got farther than the London north circular.

And the fact that they have been here for quite some time, unnoticed by many, illustrates the fact that mods and hooligans are not one and the same.

Record Sales

But to get an idea of what sort of people are underneath the Union Jack crash helmets and the fur trimmed ex-army parkas, I went to A1 Scooters, at Balby Road, Doncaster, one of the largest scooter and accessory firms in the North.

Mr. Terry Robinson, managing director of the firm which specialises in Lambretta scooters, has had more reason to notice the mod trend in Doncaster than most people. 

This year has been a record one for sales of spotlight and other chrome fittings, and while there has been a drop of 43 per cent in the registration of new motor-cycles, sales of 150 cc to 200 cc machines - the scooter bracket - have risen.

While I was at the scooter store there was a steady stream of "mod" scooters to and from the premises, bearing mods with mechanical troubles, mods wanting more chrome fittings, and mods merely looking at what is new.

"Mod-ifications" varied with each visit - from the arrays of spotlights and patriotic Union Jacks, to one embellished with a female mod in purple bell-bottomed slacks.

But an essential addition is furs. Hundreds of mum's and Grandma's old fur coats must now be gyrating around the Doncaster area as bits of trim on junior's scooter.

Richard Stephenson, a 17-year-old from Oakwood Drive, Armthorpe, is one of the fur fans. His 200 cc scooter has a fur head-lamp trim and seat cover - and his jacket has the regulation fur trimmed hood.

Cheap Travel

And why the craze for fur? "It's practical as well as stylish," Richard explained. "It keeps us warm."

Garry Knowles, also 17, of Hunt Lane, Doncaster, also has a "mod" scooter, with two spotlamps "not wired up because they would need a 12 volt battery."

"For the price of the scooter and accessories we could get a car, but the cost of running it would be much more. We get 120 miles to the gallon on a scooter," he claims.

Herbert Vincent, aged 16, of Royston Avenue, Bentley is another of the "scooter set." Scooters are more comfortable and safer, than motorcycles - except in winter - and they are also cleaner," he maintains. "On a motor-cycle you have to wear jeans, but you can go out in anything on a scooter."

Trend Setters

On the scooter, these young men look like all the others in the scooter set. The fur trimmed parkas have a detachable lining and are really an essential, but when the mods dismount they like to appear smartly dressed and the parkas come off.

And rather than being antagonists, they seem to have to pay quite a heavy price for being trendsetters.

And the accessory bedecked scooters are a popular target for petty thieves.

Yet a lot of the bad feeling against them is ill-founded and Mr. Robinson, who has a lot of contact with the scooter set would be the first to say so.

"Most of them are very well mannered boys," he claims. "These lads who they call mods, keep themselves very clean and tidy and take a real pride in their machines. they get a bit of criticism, but they do have an interest in life which a lot of youngsters today don't have."

Many thanks to Joy Cropper.

Newspaper Cuttings About Bentley High Street School

Unknown publication. 1964 or 1965.

A CHEERFUL GROUP of competitors at Bentley Secondary School sports last week.

Many thanks to Steven Walker

Bentley school 'leavers' will stay on for two years

Yorkshire Evening Post 1965.

BENTLEY Secondary School fifth-formers are all volunteers for the extra two years schooling beyond the compulsory leaving age of 15.

Some years ago the headmaster, Mr. J. Richardson, began offering pupils and parents a choice of six two-year courses at the end of the third school year.

Last year a quarter of the pupils chose to stay on. For next year the outlook is brighter still, for 80 - about half - have said they want to stay at school.

Mr. Richardson says: "It is the trend now for children to stay on at school, but we were among the first in the area to make firm moves in this direction.

"It makes a tremendous difference to their attitude, that they want to come to school. People are realising the opportunities it opens up for their children."

Many thanks to Graham Westerman.

They are smiles of victory

Unknown publication

BENTLEY High Street Boys' team won the Doncaster and district schools' senior boys' cross-country team championship and the Doncaster Rotary Club Cup. In the picture above, the winning team are all smiles as Ernest Woolford (second left, front row), vice-captain, who came first, and captain, David Hope (second right, front row) hold the cup presented by Rotary Club chairman Mr. T. E. Smiddy.

Many thanks to Den Lowe.

Bentley Boys win Shield final

Unknown publication.

Bentley High-street beat Rossington Modern School 2-1 in the area final of the Daily Dispatch Shield at Bentley Cementation ground to-day.

Bentley attacked strongly from the start and, after 10 minutes DRURY shot a goal from a centre from left-winger Pritchett.

A greasy ball hampered both sides and caused passes to go astray, but in spite of this handicap, the boys played good football.

After the interval, a fast move by Bentley gave them their second goal inside a minute through PRITCHETT.

Stanfield, in the Rossington goal, was kept busy and only some hard work by Guest and Simpson, their backs, prevented the Bentley attackers adding to their score.

Rossington strove hard, and NEWMAN, who had been playing a hard game on the left wing, reduced the arrears. Rossington continued to press, but quick defensive action by Bentley's backs kept them out.

Under the photo:

Bentley High-street School team, who to-day beat Rossington Modern School 2-1 in the area final of the Daily Dispatch Shield, on the Cementation Company ground at Bentley. Standing (left to right): Rose, Tomlinson, Waller, Beresford, Griffiths, Stephens and Jordan; seated: Whitnall, Carr, Fox, Drury and Pritchett. To-night's Y E News Football Final contains special snapshots of the Doncaster Boys' victorious team.

Many thanks to Den Lowe

Budding Champions

Unknown publication.

DONCASTER BOYS' team who beat Leeds Boys by five goals to nil in the third round of the English Schools' Shield on Saturday.

Back Row (left to right) - Waller (Bentley High Street), Oliver (Armthorpe Modern), Wayne (Junior Technical College), Stansfield (Rossington Modern), Jenkinson (Rossington Modern), Baker (Hatfield Modern).

Front Row - Whitnall (Bentley High Street), Flowers (Edlington Modern), Mitchell (Skellow Modern), Stephens (Bentley High Street), and Pritchett (Bentley High Street).

Many thanks to Den Lowe.

Pride of '68

Doncaster Advertiser 28 July 1988.

A REUINON of pupils and teachers who attended Bentley High Street School in 1968 took place at the Earl of Doncaster Hotel recently. Pictured at the rear are the teachers and at the front, fourth from the left, with her fellow pupils is the reunion organiser Gillian Hallgate, who is herself now a teacher.

Many thanks to Mick Dutchak.

Untitled 1 & 2

Unknown publication.

Bentley High Street School was the setting for this wartime drill competition by Pre-Service units in 1943. The various units taking part are seen here lined up after the presentation of trophies. This photograph was loaned to us by Mr. Harry Leach, physical training instructor to many of the local youth units during World War II.

Showing just how smart they can be were these girls of the Sea Training Corps taking part in a pre-service drill competition during World War II in the playground of Bentley High Street School. The time? 1943. The man standing with his hand on his hip (right background) is the late Mr. Evelyn Walkden who was Labour MP for Doncaster. Next to him is former boxer and physical training instructor, Mr. Harry Leach, of Bentley, who loaned us this photograph.  

Many thanks to Paul Davies via Mick Dutchak.

Mr Muscles Dies... At 38

The Sun, July 1980

Fanatic Brian has a heart attack

Bronzed muscleman Brian Taylor devoted his life to keeping fit. But the 13 stone Mr Universe contender died of a heart attack... at 38.

His heartbroken widow Edna said last night "I appeal to other fitness fanatics not to be put off by Brian's death." She believes the stress of running a health studio and exercising late into the night killed her husband - who never drank and rarely smoked.

He spent hours on bodybuilding work-outs - and he stuck rigidly to a special high protein diet.

Brian's bulking biceps made him an international star. He won the Mr International, Mr Yorkshire and Mr North-East Britain competitions.

Strain

And he qualified sixth in both the Mr Universe and Mr Europe contests.

Edna, 36 of Broughton Avenue, Bentley, Doncaster, Yorkshire said "Doctors have not told me what brought on Brian's heart condition.

"They were surprised it should happen to someone who was so fit.

"He suffered a mild heart attack in May after competing in the Mr Britain contest.

"I think the strain of running his health studio coupled with his strenuous training programme just proved too much for him.

"He was having to do his training late after work. He was really proud of his body."

Dedicated

Brian died after collapsing at his home. An examination proved that his death was due to natural causes.

Brian's friend, fellow health studio owner Terry Holian, said "He was one of the strongest men I have ever known. He was completely dedicated to keeping fit."

Many thanks to Kim O'Connor

Note: This newspaper article contains some inaccuracies, for a more accurate version please see the article The Big Drum, and scroll to the section - Bodybuilding: Brian Taylor.

For the article go to - The Big Drum

Memories of Scawthorpe

Doncaster Library Services leaflet, unknown date.

Scawthorpe lies about 2 miles north-west of Doncaster. The name is thought to be derived from an old Norse personal name - Skuli, and thorpe meaning secondary settlement or outlying farmstead. The first recorded reference is to 'Scoulthorpe' in 1317.

Pre - 1920

The area, known today as Scawthorpe, has only developed since the 1920's. The original area of Scawthorpe was farmland to the west of York Road, from Sunnyfields to Green Lane. In the mid 19th century it comprised of approximately 200 acres with no more than 15 residents. By the end of the century there were farm buildings and a row of cottages on the estate; Edward Jackson, farmer was residing at Scawthorpe Hall and his son Edward William, the designer of the Cheswold motor car, at Scawthorpe House. On the opposite side of York Road, on the corner with Jossey Lane were Scawthorpe Grange Farm and two cottages. The 1891 Census records 36 people living at Scawthorpe.

'[The Hall] had tennis courts, a sunken rose garden, stables and a laundry. The main drive was via the South Lodge....... In 1914 soldiers were billeted in Scawthorpe House.'

By 1925, Scawthorpe Farm belonged to the Barber Walker Company, the owners of Bentley Colliery. Mr McGregor, the Colliery agent lived in the Hall, the chauffeur in the South Lodge, and the farm manager in the Middle Lodge. Colliery agents continued to live at Scawthorpe Hall until c1960. By the early 1980's, the Hall, the House and several other buildings had been demolished and the site redeveloped as The Sycamores.

After the First World War, miners, mainly from Brodsworth Colliery, bought long plots of land on Green Lane, which were to be developed. A 'tin city' of corrugated shacks and railway carriages became temporary accommodation for the miners and their families, whilst they began to build permanent homes. The area became known as 'Little Canada' due to the similarity of these temporary structures to Canadian houses; they did, however, have to be inspected and approved to be habitable.

'Originally, we as children, knew this as "tin city" or later "little Canada". A large parcel of land had been bought by a group of miners, and it was divided between them; until such time as they could afford to have proper houses or bungalows built they lived in corrugated tin shacks, wooden sheds, and even railway wagons.'

New Developement: 1920 - 1945

'There isn't an old Scawthorpe - first reaction. Then, we didn't say Scawthorpe, we just said Jossey Lane'.

The area to the east of York Road, now known as Scawthorpe, was referred to as 'Jossey Lane': part of the countryside, which surrounded Bentley. It was mostly grassland, and during the Second World War wheat and vegetables were grown. Pipering Lane, which ran from York Road to Bentley, was a bridleway, popular for blackberrying.

'Legend has it that Jossey Lane was named after a local vagrant.'

'Out of the Bentley built up area into the countryside, round the corner into Jossey Lane, there were loads of blackberry bushes and beautiful scenery with wild roses.'

In 1935, the first private houses were built on Middlegate (Jossey Lane), Waldon Avenue, Scawthorpe Avenue, Ashton Avenue and Raymond Road end of Amersall Road: prices ranged from £450 to £475, the deposit was £20. There were no immediate amenities: the nearest shops and school were in Bentley.

'Bentley Park played a big part in our lives, with the band playing every Sunday in the bandstand.'

Sunnyfields estate, characterized by its flat-roofed houses, was developed on land originally belonging to Scawthorpe Farm. In 1934, a three bed-roomed house on Stanley Road: a cul-de-sac, built by Thompson & Dixon cost £385, and a two bed-roomed £375; these could be secured with a deposit of £35 and a mortgage of 11s 2d a week for 22 years.

There were few local amenities: the nearest school was at Highfields; the Sun Inn was built in 1936, and Dr Mckeown held a surgery in a pre-fabricated clinic on Barnsley Road.

'We lived in Sunnyfields and would cross the North Road and go down Pipering Lane to Bentley to the Park. This was the nearest park we had that had swings, boating lake, sand pit...'

Development: Post War

 

'Pipering Lane was a dirt track, no buildings anywhere.'

Bentley-with-Arksey Urban District Council was responsible for the administration of the area. Post-war housing development was both council and private.

Initially the area appears to have been a mixture of semi - permanent and permanent housing: Nissen huts were built on Pipering Lane until they were replaced by council and colliery houses in the early 1950's, and pre-fabs were erected on Middlegate and Jossey Lane. In 1946 council houses were built on Scawthorpe Avenue, Long Edge Lane, Langthwaite Lane, Middlegate (Jossey Lane) and Balham Avenue. The main living room in a council house was painted brown, with the kitchen and bathroom in green.

'I came into my house [on Castle Hills Road] on October 14th, 1947, a brand new house and my first baby boy 14 days old. We had no causeways made, and ours was the first row of new houses to be built. It was fields around us; two woods with various wildlife. We saw the estate grow.'

'There were pre-fabricated houses in Middlegate and also on both sides of Jossey Lane to Amersall Road. The children had to walk to Cooke Street School [Bentley].'

The second phase of council housing saw the development of Springcroft Drive, Stonehill Rise, Amersall Crescent, Broachgate and Holmefield Crescent. Between 1952 and 1955 the National Coal Board built over 300 houses on Jossey Lane, Danesway and Petersgate. Despite all this building the area was still semi-rural.

'Colliery houses [concrete] were built... mainly to accommodate an influx of Scottish miners to the area.'

'About 1952 the Coal Board built over 300 houses for the miners. ...The solid floors in the houses were constructed of concrete and steel chippings and expected to last forever. Unfortunately, the wrong shale was used under the concrete, and when the houses had been occupied for some time, the floors rose making it almost impossible to open the doors... The floors were chopped out and replaced.'

'On the opposite side of Amersall Road was a great, large, massive field. Our house on Petersgate was built in 1954. We used to walk through the field. On the far right hand side were large weeds where we used to catch butterflies.'

During the early 1950's private development along Amersall Road had begun at Jossey Lane and had joined up with Raymond Road, originally a cul-de-sac. Land for private development sold for £275 per plot: many people built their own houses; ready-built houses could be purchased for £450. Development on Amersall Road progressed into the 1960's.

'Amersall Road, built about 1951, began at Jossey Lane and cut through the orchards to link up with Raymond Road. Therefore we have one long road with two names.'

The first shop to open was the Co-op on Stonehill Rise, followed by the Meadow Dairy, and a post office on Scawthorpe Avenue. Mr Dunn, the newsagent originally sold papers from a wooden hut before moving into his present shop on Crossland Way. A library service operated out of a small room on Watch House Lane. The Adam and Eve opened in 1957. Dr Harry McKeown held a clinic once a week. The nearest bus stop, however, was still on York Road.

'Mr Dunn, the present newsagent sold papers from a wooden hut to the builders....'

'When we did get a bus it went up Jossey Lane and stopped running at 7pm.'

Sunnyfields School was built c1956 and the first headmaster was Mr Banks; the Infant School opened in 1964 with Mrs Oldfield as headmistress. The present Don Valley High School, originally known as Bentley Scawthorpe Secondary Modern and built on the site of Scawthorpe Grange Farm, was opened in 1959.

The present Castle Hills Middle School was used as a church before St Luke's was built in 1965: The Church of England used it in the morning, the Methodists in the afternoon, both had Sunday Schools. The red brick Methodist Church opened in 1958 with help from the Joseph Rank Benevolent Trust. A large white hut on Broachgate was used for Cubs, Brownies and Guides: Mrs Lawson was the Guides' leader.

'The junior school in Rose Crescent, known as Sunnyfields when opened, was built of reinforced concrete panels, laid horizontally, on one another, like a Meccano set....... The first headmaster was a Mr Banks who, later, became a church warden at the church on Barnsley Road.'

The red church and the Adam and Eve pub were some of the first buildings.'

'The Methodist Church where we used to go was known as "Sunshine Corner" on a Tuesday night.' 

Other amenities followed: an off-licence, a laundrette, Tree's the bakers, Clark's the barbers, Robinson's the dentist, a Lada garage on Amersall Road; the present library was opened in 1962, a new post office on Amersall Road in 1968, and Amersall House in October 1973. 

Photos From The Leaflet:

Some information from the end of the leaflet:

Photographs of Scawthorpe Hall and Farm from the 1930's to the 1970's kindly loaned by Mrs J Thorne. Cover photograph shows Joseph Shearman 'opening out' at Scawthorpe Farm c1949.

This leaflet has been compiled and edited by Carol Hill and Katherine Marriott from information gathered during a reminiscence session at Scawthorpe Library from residents of Scawthorpe. 

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