Sheffield and the Nuclear Winter: A Cold War Exhibition

The City Archives has been home to two university students over the last few months. Sabrina Webster and Chantelle Francis are studying for an MA in Public Humanities at the University of Sheffield. They chose to base themselves in the Archives and Local Studies Library in a quest to find out more about the city’s recent Cold War history.  They are now ready to share their research in a special exhibition at the Central Library next week...

We hope you'll come along to our exhibition on Saturday 21 May, 12.30-3pm in the Carpenter Room (first floor), Sheffield Central Library. Our exhibition offers the opportunity for visitors to learn more about the South Yorkshire County Council and anti-nuclear activism in Sheffield during the Cold War. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore selected archival material from various archives across the city, including Sheffield City Archives, Sheffield Local Studies Library and Sheffield Reference and Information Library.

The exhibition will shed light on a variety of topics, from the workings of both South Yorkshire County and Sheffield City Council, as well as efforts made by Sheffield CND and other local activist groups in the city during the Cold War. As such, there will be the opportunity to hear different stories from those at the centre of this unique period of Sheffield’s history. We have been lucky enough to have interviewed John Cornwell (former Deputy Leader of SYYC), Roger Barton (former Chair of Sheffield City Council’s Nuclear Free Zones Committee), Maggie Tyson (former member of the activist group Library Workers Against the Bomb), and Stewart Kemp (former Nuclear Free Zones Officer for Sheffield City Council). All of these interviews were fascinating, and we are looking forward to displaying excerpts from the interviews we have conducted with them over the past few months.

There will also be the opportunity for visitors to mingle, discuss the exhibition’s content and enjoy the complimentary refreshments available in the adjoining Jackson Room.

For more information, check out the event’s facebook page, at: https://www.facebook.com/events/203531200034270/

Or follow us on twitter, at: https://twitter.com/publichumsshef

Sabrina Webster & Chantelle Francis

Public Humanities MA Students

University of Sheffield

Exploring the Archives: Alternative views of the Sheffield Blitz

James Throup, a student from the School of English at the University of Sheffield, is currently spending time in the archives uncovering some of the fascinating documents which tell the history of Sheffield.  His fourth blog post takes us back to the Second World War...

Five minutes after the sirens had died down, the drone of many planes was heard, and the heavy guns began to roar and the lighter ones to bark with a volume and urgency which startled many who had prided themselves on being indifferent to raid warnings.

(Lamb and Walton, 1980).

Thus begins one recollection of the first night of the Sheffield Blitz during the Second World War. Due to Sheffield’s industrial capabilities, an air raid on the city had long been anticipated. However, given previous false alarms, when the warning siren screamed into life most people failed to respond with any urgency. As Lamb and Walton (1980) note: 

 

Few people were disturbed by the now familiar sound. As usual, not more than a score of persons left the places of entertainment when it was announced that the alert had been given.

The raids on Sheffield took place on Thursday 12^th December and Sunday 15^th December 1940, in each case lasting through to the early hours of the following day. The first raid targeted the city centre, as well as areas such as Abbeydale, Walkley, and Crookesmoore.  The second raid targeted the industrial east end, hitting Attercliffe , Grimesthorpe and Burngreave; Brown Bayleys steel works was hit in the process.

Almost 700 civilians and service men were killed, whilst 1,586 people were injured and 40,000 were made homeless. Sheffield was targeted due to its steel and munitions manufacture, which played a vital role in Britain’s war effort, and it is doubtful whether the Allies would have won the war if the steel works had been completely destroyed.

Sheffield Archives holds a most curious item: a German map with accompanying instructions for an air raid on Sheffield during the Second World War. These documents were obtained from offices in Germany by a soldier from Sheffield. In the top left corner they are marked ‘Geheim!’ [Secret!], and are dated from October 1939, showing that an attack by the Luftwaffe had been planned a year in advance to the actual Blitz. On the map, the intended strike area of the steel works is marked out by a red line. Translated, these documents reveal the sophistication of German intelligence and reconnaissance:

Section 4:

Active and passive air raid protection, local observation (watch): nearest anti aircraft garrisons: Rotherham (5km to the NE) Chesterfield (18km in the S) Bomb proof air raid rooms

Section 5:

Orientation points for target identification: railway bridge over River Don (south loop) in the middle of Sheffield by Victoria Station. 1.7km in the SW River Don snakes itself in S form through the works group (installation) in the middle a dam (75km long) which has an offshoot for the mill dam canal.

I found it extremely intriguing to see the Second World War presented in such a manner, to see Sheffield reduced to a set of strategic targets in the eyes of the enemy. I felt this intensely technical reading of the city offered an arresting counterpoint to received narratives of the war, and to the more personal oral histories through which the local community remembers the period.

Digging deeper into the vast wealth of local material revealed further unexpected ways of viewing the Blitz. Sheffield resident Joe Ashton recalls how the Foundry Working Men’s Club offered free ale to anyone brave enough to stay out of the shelters, rather than let the stock be destroyed and wasted - a move which attracted no shortage of takers, and initiated a night of debauchery whilst the bombs rained down:

I certainly do not recall anybody saying any prayers. Or starting off singing ‘Abide with Me’, like they did in the war pictures. Most of the street seemed determined to go right through every single one of the seven deadly sins before the roof fell in. Including some very respectable neighbours.

(License 2000: 1)

In a later raid on 9^th January 1941, Kay Mastin recalls the destruction of her neighbours’, the Hartleys, bungalow:

The only person who was injured was the maid. It [the bomb] dropped in the dining room and that was near her kitchen, and it moved the fireplace right across the kitchen. And they [the Hartleys] didn’t know what to do with this maid…they went to live with his mother and father in Ecclesall Road South. So they asked me if I’d have this maid, and she was here for six weeks…Everybody in Dore said she’d shown a light because she was a foreigner. It wasn’t so.

 

 

 

The Hartley’s maid was Hungarian, and there was much government propaganda disseminated at the time advocating circumspection towards possible spies. It’s easy to forget how suspicious people were towards foreigners at the time, but heart-warming to see that Kay was quick to refute such xenophobic scaremongering.

Through writing this piece I became very aware of how important the archiving of material is for how we relate to the past. It offers the chance for people to rediscover history in new and unexpected ways, showing how history is a dynamic process of interpretation and re-inscription. Though the period of the Second World War was one of great suffering and tumult in Sheffield, as for the rest of the country, different perspectives on the past reveal a sense of solidarity and community in the face of the destructive forces of war.  

James Throup
University of Sheffield

 

References

‘Raiders over Sheffield’ Mary Walton and J.P Lamb (Sheffield: Sheffield City Libraries, 1980) Local Studies Library: 940.5442 S

‘Second World War German Map of Sheffield and Associated papers’ Sheffield Archives: X196

‘Sheffield Blitz: In words, pictures and memories’ Paul License (Sheffield: Sheffield Newspapers 2000) Local Studies Library: 940.5442 SQ

‘The Time of Our Lives – Dore at War: Memories from The Dore Oral History Collection’ ed. by Helen Ross, Barbara Jackson & Maureen Cope (Oxford, Dore Oral History Group, 2005) Local Studies Library: 940.5342 S

Student project investigates Cold War in Sheffield

The City Archives has been home to two university students over the last few months. Sabrina Webster and Chantelle Francis are studying for an MA in Public Humanities at the University of Sheffield. They chose to base themselves in the Archives and Local Studies Library in a quest to find out more about the city’s recent Cold War history. In the fourth of their blogs, they explain what they’ve uncovered so far and reveal details of their forthcoming event...

Our fourth blog post brings exciting news... we have booked a date and venue for our exhibition. Keep your diaries free on Saturday 21 May, 12.30pm-3pm, and head to the Carpenter Room (first floor) at Sheffield City Library. We feel lucky to have booked this large space in this beautiful building to showcase our findings, and we will be making use of this lovely room with information boards and tables displaying a selection of primary material from various archives across the city. What’s more, there’s even a room for complimentary refreshments! Visitors will have the opportunity to explore primary sources relating to the South Yorkshire County Council and Sheffield City Council, as well as nuclear activism in Sheffield from the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. So, with only a few weeks to go, we have been picking up the pace on our research.

I met with Maggie Tyson a few weeks back. Maggie works at both Sheffield City Archives and the Local Studies Library, and she was a part of the activist group Library Workers Against the Bomb. It was lovely hearing stories about Maggie’s trip to Greenham Common and she gave us a personal insight into activism in the 1970s and 1980s. I’d like to share with you this particular excerpt from our interview, where Maggie describes her memories of her trip to Greenham Common:

“I remember there were people trying to cut the perimeter fences with cutters and being arrested and stuff. We weren’t where that happened but I remember we walked miles around that fence looking at everything and talking to people. And there was this song that everybody was singing, and I’ve never forgotten it actually. And it goes: Tall and strong, she goes on and on and on, you can’t kill the spirit, she is like a mountain..."

I left Maggie with a much better understanding of what the Cold War period was like for some people of Sheffield, and I was particularly struck by the reality of civil defence. In short, despite what was officially said, there was no such thing. It is clear today that pamphlets such as Protect and Survive, which advised citizens to hide under their tables with a supply of baked beans and a few buckets of water and come out after a week, were largely futile!

Sheffield City Council and South Yorkshire County Council understood this and went some way to dispel the Government’s ‘survival’ tips, producing leaflets such as You and the Bomb, which was distributed to 500,000 homes in South Yorkshire. This leaflet challenged the Government’s civil defence plans, claiming they “cannot provide proper protection against nuclear attack for the bulk of the population.”

In an interview with Roger Barton, the former Chair of Sheffield City Council’s Nuclear Free Zones Committee during the 1980s, we learnt about the efforts the Council made to inform people of the realities of nuclear war. For example, the City Council sponsored research into what exactly would happen if the UK were to fall victim to a nuclear attack. Through this research it was discovered that a nuclear explosion would cause immense darkness for a considerable length of time, dropping temperatures to sub-zero, and making life on Earth near impossible. To avoid this Nuclear Winter, the Nuclear Free Zones Committee encouraged other local authorities to align themselves with peace projects and endeavour to see another way of dealing with international issues rather than continue with the imbalance of threat and fear.

This issue of civil defence is just one element of our research project, and with just two weeks to go until the exhibition, we are increasingly excited about offering a glimpse of what this city was like thirty years ago.

Sabrina Webster and Chantelle Francis

Public Humanities MA Students

University of Sheffield