Six miles due north of the famous crooked spire town of Chesterfield and five miles south of the steel
city Sheffield, lies the small township of Dronfield, once known as Dronefield. It derives its name from
the river Drone that bisects the town but the letter ‘e’ was discarded many years ago.
In the year of 1873 Dronfield entered a new phase in its long history by becoming a steel-making town.
When Cammel and Laird a large engineering company in Workington decided to build a large forge
and rolling mill on Callywhite Lane for the mass production of railway lines and other products
associated with trains.
This new industry brought jobs and prosperity to the town and many houses and shops were built to
accommodate the workers and business people. When it started production under the name of Wilson
Cammel it was an immediate success exporting its products worldwide. But that was at a cost for the
workers, for their wages and working conditions left a lot to be desired. Long hours of toil in sweltering
hot, dusty workshops and working with very dangerous machinery. According to stories handed down
from one generation to another, accidents and fatalities were commonplace as there were no safety
regulations in those days.
There were no trade unions to safeguard the workers rights and the bosses just pleased themselves
regarding the wages and working conditions. This state of affairs continued well into the next century,
but still the coming of this massive forge and rolling mill had its benefits.
For the next ten years Dronfields population increased rapidly, then came the bad news. Demand for
the mills products decreased and workers were laid off and in 1883 the mill closed down and went to
Workington. The effect on the town was devastating, shops and dwelling houses became vacant and run
down. Included in this sad state of affairs was a long row of terraced houses known as Cammels Row alias
Buckingham Terrace and in later years nicknamed “Cammels Hump” by the locals. But before I go into more
details about Cammels Row, let me tell you this short poem that I wrote to commemorate the coming
of steel to this town.

STEEL TOWN

Dronfield became a steel town back in 1873,
When Wilson Cammel built a steel factory.
A giant forge and rolling mill based on Callywhite Lane,
Producing miles of railway lines for the newly invented train.
They also built some houses known as Cammels Row,
And that’s where the workmen lived along time ago.
The workers suffered hardship with loss of life and limb,
Poorly paid, long hours of toil, working conditions grim.
Then after ten productive years the Dronfield plant closed down,
Leaving behind dire poverty and a sad depleted town.
But old Dronfield recovered and for a while did Cammels Row,
But now it’s just a plot of land where silver birch trees grow.

After Wilson Cammel forge closed down most of the houses on Cammels Row became derelict. Out
of the forty-two dwellings only a few were tenanted the rest were rented out to local farmers who kept
their animals in them. At the turn of the century Dronfields economy began to recover and the houses
began to fill up again. So much so that when the First World War broke out in 1914 all the houses
were tenanted.
Many of the rows young men had to go and fight in the trenches in France, sadly for some they never
returned along with millions of other poor souls from all the nations involved in this pointless conflict.
When will we ever learn that wars solve nothing! It wasn’t until 1918 that it ended with no outright
winner, the losers being the poor families who had lost their loved ones.
The 1914-18 war had brought a lot of changed attitudes in the lifestyles of the people of Dronfield and
things were changing rapidly. Working men were forming trade unions and getting themselves organised
to fight for better wages and working conditions. In 1926 the coal miners came out on strike because
the mine owners wanted to reduce the miners wages, this was seen as an attack by the bosses to try
and stop change.
Workers in other industries came out in sympathy with the coal miners and it caused complete chaos
for weeks, until the middle classes decided to break the strike by offering to drive the buses, trains and
do other jobs affected by the strikers. This had a devastating effect and the workers had to eat humble
pie and return to their jobs defeated. The aforementioned strike did a lot of harm to many families in
Dronfield and caused abject poverty. Many people had to rely on handouts from the better off and you
can imagine how degrading that was! Because at that time there was no dole payments for men out of
work, no social security or any other benefits like we have today. But one thing they did have in those
days was compassion and neighbourliness and as with most small towns and villages being close knit
communities help was never far away.
The year of the miners strike 1926 was the year yours truly came onto this earth one cold and frosty
January morning, my parents Alfred and Sarah Weston had already got a large family of two sons and
eight daughters. Large families being the norm in those days, so I was in very experienced hands. But
having said that, when I was six months old I was struck down with that killer illness meningitis. For the
next six months I was at deaths door and the fact that I’m here writing this story is due to the devotion
of my dear late mother Sarah and her next door neighbour Mrs. Roberts, who took nightly turns of
nursing me through this terrible illness.
Well that’s enough about myself for the moment, let’s go back to Dronfield. In those far off days when
I was young, money or the lack of it was always a problem to the working classes due to the shortage
of jobs and the fact that there was no social security payments like today.
To illustrate this I wrote the following poem called hard times:

HARD TIMES

I was born in Dronfield in the nineteen twenties
So that makes me a Dronfeldian citizen.
And I’ll tell thee now in those far off days
Tha’d got to learn to look after thi sen.

No national health service, no holiday pay,
No dole when tha’d got no job to do.
Tha had to go begging to means testing men
Who were abaht as compassionate as flu.

They’d come round and look at possessions tha’d got
To see if tha’d owt valuable tha cud flog.
Or put into hock wi pawnbroker man
And then tha didn’t get enough to feed dog.

Now some folk were well off but majority was poor
And alas! I was born into the latter group.
Bread and dripping or jam, were our main weekday meals
But on Sundays we had a treat of lentil soup.

On Mondays me mam used to go to meat shop
To buy pigs trotters and a sheep’s head she’d seek.
She’d ask butcher to leave the eyes in sheeps head
To see us thru the rest of the coming week.

Now don’t get me wrong we had our good times
When we had a few pennies to spend.
We’d tek off to pictures on Palace Walk
To see owd Laurel and Hardy and friends.

Then as the years rolled by I’m happy to say
The hard times got a lot better by far.
We had jobs to do and money to spend
On a pint of beer and our favourite chocolate bar.

Now I’m living in hope in owd Dronfield
That we’ve seen the last of those hard times.
And pray they never come back to haunt us
For the sake of your grandkids and mine.

That should give our young readers an idea how we all lived back in the past.
Now I can continue my story about Dronfield. In my younger days times were very hard but being
young and lacking experience children were able to cope with the kind of environment they lived in and
I was no exception. I recall many happy memories of many different events that took place, one of
them being the annual fair that took place in a field on Callywhite lane. It lasted a full week and ended
with a religious festival with all the different congregations from the Church of England, Baptists,
Catholics and Methodists taking part and marching round the town behind a drum and bugle band with
large banners depicting the various chapels and churches. Weather permitting most of the people of
Dronfield turned out, this used to be known as Feast Sunday and as usual I have remembered it in
verse and it goes as follows:

DRONFIELDS FEAST SUNDAY

It was our town’s biggest event of the year for all to share
As people came from near and far to Dronfields annual fair.
Like monster dragons breathing fire the giant steam engines came
Pulling rides and side-shows to a field on Callywhite lane.
Distant cousins, aunts and uncles, friendly neighbours, mums and dads
And from the churches in their best clothes came all the little girls and lads.
With banners flying, drummers playing and marching through the Dronfields streets
Down the main road into Cliffe park for sports and games and other treats.
Egg and spoon and three leg races, sack jumping and tug of war
Prizes for the winning children and losers got a chocolate bar.
Sadly the years have passed away and so has Dronfields Feast Sunday.

There was also another event that took place later in the year and it was called the torch light cycle
parade. In which people decorated their cycles with fancy coloured streamers and garlands of flowers.
If the weather was fine they paraded through the streets and then judging took place and prizes
awarded for the best decorated cycle.
Life for us kids on Cammels Row was never dull and not one day passed without some sort of incident
happening. People mixed with their neighbours a lot more than they do today. I remember them
borrowing cups of sugar or basins full of flour promising to return them at the weekend and more often
than not they did. Living conditions in most working class homes were primitive, no electric power, gas
was used for lighting and coal fired cooking ranges were used for baking bread and pastries.
No automatic washing machines, mothers used a large zinc tub and they agitated the clothes with a
wooden three legged dolly peg and for wringing most of the water out, a big iron framed mangle with
large wooden rollers turned by a massive crank wheel was used.
I can assure you it was really hard graft for most mothers in those days. They worked from morning till
night slaving away keeping the home clean and tidy. As there was no fitted carpets they had to get
down on their knees and scrubb the floors, pieces of coconut matting and hand pegged rugs covered
parts of the floor with the rest being covered with lino.
Toilet facilities consisted of an outside midden, a wooden plank with a large hole over a tin dustbin
sized bucket with handles on for you know what! These were situated mainly in the backyard. Men
came twice a week with their midden cart to empty them and what a pong they gave off especially in
warm weather, it was a well known fact that some of this waste matter ended up on Parsley Halls
rhubarb fields what is now known as the Holmesdale Estate. Not much of a substitute for custard what
do you think?
Back to those earth toilets as they were called, not every household had one and being out in the
backyards some had to be shared with the next door neighbours. This caused lots of problems on dark
nights as we used to carry a candle in a tin can and not being able to afford toilet rolls we cut the daily
newspapers into square sheets and stuck them on a nail.
Another drawback connected with those middens, they attracted loads of rats and other vermin and it
was the job of three brothers Horace, Fred and Harry Turner to catch them. This they did with bait and
wire cages, after trapping them alive they were transported to a waste coal tip on Cemetery Road and
let loose only to be killed by a couple of Jack Russell Terriers. The terriers grabbed hold of the rats by
the back of the neck and tossed them high up in the air and killing them when they fell back to earth.
Watching this at times was funny and frightening for us kids on the row, but at that time we hadn’t the
luxury of organised sporting facilities like the children of today. We had to amuse ourselves by playing
games like kick can, whip and top, hide and seek, rounders,
leap frog and skipping.
If our parents could afford to give us two pennies that’s the equivalence of one new pence in today’s
money it would pay for a trip to our only cinema the Dronfield Electra this was based on Palace Walk
opposite our local Betting Shop. When it first opened it was a variety palace and at the Saturday night
show members of the audience were invited to participate in some of the acts. On one occasion a
neighbour and friend of mine Mrs Lily Wooley who at this particular time was in her early teens, bravely
volunteered to be put into a watertight coffin and then lowered into a massive water tank for a short
period of time. For this she was paid half a crown the equivalent to 12 ½ new pence.
Her younger sister Iris also volunteered to go on stage and sing a song and for this she was given a live
pet rabbit, but sadly for young Iris it met an untimely end in the family stew pot, such was the need in
those days. When the Electra turned into a cinema it was open for six nights a week, plus a Saturday
morning matinee. Mondays and Saturdays had two shows each night which were called first and
second houses. The first being mainly for parents with young children and the second for teenagers and
courting couples.
Admission fees were 2d, 4d, and 6d. The balcony was the favourite place for young lovers who spent
most of the time kissing and cuddling. The majority of films screened at that period in time were
westerns, cowboys and indians to us. Our heroes were Gene Autrey, Roy Rogers and his horse
Trigger, Tom Mix, the Lone Ranger and Tonto and so on. Main cartoon characters were Mickey and
Minnie Mouse, Popeye The Sailor Man, Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry.
Our favourite comedy films were Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, The Three Stooges and the
Keysone Cops with Charlie Chaplin. As I have done with other subjects in my book I’ve wrote the
following poem about Dronfields only cinema.

PICTURE PALACE

Dronfield had a cinema a long, long time ago
It used to cost us two old pence to see a picture show.
Cowboy films and comedies, cartoons and pathe news
And intervals in between for us to visit the loos.
A two-hour show on weekday nights with three on Saturdays
Sunday was a day of rest when we would go to pray
And theirs many a Dronfield couple who met beneath its roof
Fell in love and married, which only goes to prove.
That when the television came and the old cinema had to go
Dronfield lost a way of life and not just a picture show.

So much for nostalgia. However, life in the thirties for us kids was never dull, we never had much
money to spend and not many toys to play with. But we kept ourselves active by make do and mend,
making running hoops out of old cycle wheels, playing marbles with glass alleys and stoppers out of
pop bottles.
At harvest time we helped the local farmers harvest crops of wheat and potatoes getting paid a few
coppers for our labour. This all went towards the family budget and mainly spent on food and clothes,
with a copper or two put away towards our annual day at the seaside the following year. More often
than not it was Cleethorpes, due to it being the nearest and therefore the cheapest place to travel. A far
cry from the average family holidays of today, still as they say beggars can’t be choosers.
In my younger days in the late thirties, times for us kids were improving. Jobs were getting easier to
find for our old elder brothers and sisters. This was due to the state of the world politics at this time, a
couple of dictators had appeared on the scene namely Adolph Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini
in Italy. They joined forces and adopted a campaign for world domination and on the 3rd of September
1939 Hitler’s troops invaded Poland. On the same day Great Britain and the common wealth of nations
declared war on Italy and Germany, but it was too late to stop the Polish being defeated by Hitler’s
shock troops and his dive bombers.  They went through Poland and the other Balkan States like a dose
of salts leaving death and destruction in their wake.
This war was to change the life styles of our people significantly in the next five years and Dronfield
was no exception. Every man, woman and child was issued with a gas mask in case Hitler started
using poisonous gas bombs and they had to be carried about with us everywhere we went. We also
had identity cards and food rationing books for every family. The books consisted of vouchers to be
redeemed for food portions for each member of the family on a weekly basis. Clothes, furniture and
various other items of everyday life were also rationed.
A blackout was imposed on every household and business in the country in order to make it more
difficult for the German bombers to see there targets when they came over England on air raids. Their
aim to knock out our vital war industries. Each city, town and village in our country recruited air raid
wardens whose duties were patrolling the streets at night time to make sure no lights were showing
through doors, windows and fanlights this being a small window above a door. Anyone breaking the
blackout as it was known, were warned with a following fine if they didn’t correct the fault.
Most families in Dronfield had fathers or sons conscripted into the armed forces and as a result of this
mother’s and grown up daughters had to go out to work in the factories and fields in order to earn a
living for their families. All this activity and upheaval in our everyday lives was very exciting to us kids
and we didn’t realise the dangers connected to these changes i.e. air raids and the possible invasion by
the Germans, who had already captured most of Europe.
The thought of the fact that we might never see some of our fathers and brothers again never entered
our heads, we carried on as normal going to school and playing our usual games and behaving as if the
war was not going to affect us at all. But it did and I can remember the first time the air raid sirens
sounded, panic took over in every household on practically every street in Dronfield. That was because
of our close proximity to the steel city of Sheffield and we fully expected to be pounded with bombs.
But thankfully it turned out to be a false alarm.
The government at this time was doing all it could to prepare the population for further air raids and
started issuing Anderson shelters out to people who had back gardens to put them in and communal
shelters for people who lived in terraced homes. The Anderson shelters consisted of metal sheeting
bent U shape and were designed to be sunk into the ground and then it was covered with about twelve
inches of soil and rubble. The communal shelters were made of concrete sections and only partly sunk
in the ground and they were also covered with soil and grassed over.
Bombing raids were getting more frequent and one cold clear night in early December 1940 Hitler
decided to send his bombers over to target Sheffield to try and cripple the cities giant steel producing
plants. Knowing that if he succeeded he would have dealt our war effort a serious blow and pave the
way for an invasion of our country. On this particular night dozens of bomber aircraft carrying 2000 BL
high explosive and hundreds of fire bombs came in waves over the city of Sheffield devastating parts of
the City centre and the North end of the City doing terrible damage to lives and property.
We in Dronfield were on the southern side of the city and we escaped with a few pieces of anti-aircraft
shells. The city defences consisted of giant balloons attached to long steel hawsers soaring into the sky,
their objective being to stop the German planes flying low over the city therefore making it harder for
them to see and hit their targets. These were backed up by a ring of anti-aircraft guns and giant
searchlights around the city, probing the skies to enable the gunners to see the enemy planes and fire at
them.
It was a sad, awesome sight seeing those poor people of Sheffield being subjected to so much death
and destruction and we in Dronfield not being able to help them.  As the war progressed into the
second year we in Dronfield like the rest of the country started to hold weekly fund raising ventures i.e.
dances, jumble sales, whist drives and numerous other ways of contributing to the war effort they were
known as salute the soldier week. The proceeds going towards the war effort and the amount of
money collected countrywide was phenomenal and it made a substantial contribution to the battle
against Nazi Germany, Italy and the Japanese war machine.
It was after the first blitz on Sheffield in early 1941 that Dronfield started an air training squadron. It’s
aim was to prepare our young men for future duty in the royal air force as pilots, navigators and
mechanics. Subjects taught included Morse code, aircraft recognition, squad drill, sport and physical
training. For one week each year the whole squadron of four officers and about sixty boys visited an
air force station. On our second year visit we set off from Dronfield on a fine hot morning in July bound
for the South coast and an R.A.F night fighter station.
We arrived about 11 o’clock and immediately assembled on the parade ground for roll call, when one
Of our cadets who happened to be looking skywards shouted “enemy aircraft sir” the officer in charge
flying officer Bentley commanded us to lie flat on the ground. The enemy plane in question was a
Dornier heavy bomber and he came in low over the airfield. As we were all looking up we saw the
bomb bay doors open and two large bombs came hurtling down and landed on the far corner of the
parade ground, only a hundred yards from where we lay. Luckily! They didn’t explode, if they had
exploded I would not be here writing this story, but they turned out to be time bombs set to go off at a
later date.
We were evacuated from the danger zone while those brave men from the bomb disposal squadron
made them safe by removing the time fuses. This operation required a lot of skill and nerves of steel as
the bombs could have exploded at anytime depending on the length of the timing device. After they had
been disarmed, the two bombs were found to be full of 2000 BL of high explosive. They were then
transported to the station officer’s apartment and placed at each side of his doorway.
You can imagine the sighs of relief from everyone concerned and the debt of gratitude we owed to
those brave officers of the bomb disposal squad, who put their lives at risk to save ours. After that
initial scare the rest of the week passed without any further incidents and we arrived home early the
following Saturday. Thankful to be still alive after our traumatic experience at the R.A.F camp.
Compared to the damage inflicted on our major ports and cities by Hitler’s bombers, we in Dronfield
were very lucky that we only had
one high explosive bomb, which landed in Monks Wood near the Hallows golf club. It made a crater
half the size of a football pitch and was used by us teenagers as a cycling track and up to a few years
ago it was still there but filled with water. The second incident occurred at Summerly, near
Apperknowle and this was a bomb that floated down with a parachute attached to it and known as a
landmine. But it landed in open spaces and did little damage. In the only other incident that I can
remember, it was said that a German plane saw the flaming chimneystack of a north bound train and
aimed his incendiary firebombs at it. They all landed on the railway embankment near Wreakes Lane
only damaging the grass and fencing.
So Dronfield came through the war without a civilian being killed by enemy bombers. But sadly the
same could not be said for the poor people of Sheffield who suffered hundreds of civilian casualties as
a result of the numerous bombing raids. But happier times were not far away as war in Europe came to
an end in 1945, bringing with it tremendous scenes of jubilation all over the country.
Street parties and dancing were common place, trimmings stretching from houses at opposite sides of
the street and millions of balloons floating in the air. This went on all through the night and in some
places lasted for over a week. Then when the euphoria had died down and true reality had returned,
attention was focused on the state of our towns and cities. Just how were they going to be rebuild after
one of the most devastating wars in history.
This was going to be a gigantic task involving billions of pounds over the forthcoming years. Fortunately!
Dronfield had suffered no bomb damage but the town planners set their thoughts on expansion and
house building began on Hill Top Road and Parsley Halls rhubarb fields (now the Holmesdale Estate)
and the most beautiful part of our town the Gosforth Valley.
This provoked a lot of objections at the time but they were tossed aside and building work was started.
By the time those three major building sites were completed our towns population had increased
tenfold. I decided to write a small poem on the subject and it was later printed in our local paper The
Dronfield Advertiser and it went as follows.

THE LOST VALLEY

Memories of our Gosforth Valley, Dronfields beauty spot of yore,
Rolling Meadows, farms and wildlife, mother nature’s superstore.
Skylarks soaring over cornfields, robins in the winter snow,
These are memories of Gosforth Valley that our young folk do not know.
For we let the builders rape it with their concrete bricks and wood,
Building lots of little boxes where majestic trees once stood.
Gone the farms and gone the wildlife, gone the fields where we once played,
Our Gosforth Valley as gone forever, victim of a town betrayed.

New industries opened up and with Dronfield expanding, the much, needed Dronfield bypass was
finally completed after being put on hold because of the outbreak of the second world war. The bypass
is about four miles long and starts at the large roundabout at Bowshaw and carries on past Gunstones
bakery, through Hill Top and culminates in the Crooked spire town of Chesterfield. It’s certainly made
a big difference to the amount of traffic on the A61 that runs through Dronfield.
Apart from the three major building sites I mentioned earlier, Dronfield itself has changed very little,
Farwater Lane was developed and a Gateway supermarket was built along with a few shops and a
medical centre with sports facilities. Various small firms inhabit Wreakes Lane and Stubley Lane houses
Gunstones Bakery. Nearby the Old Manor House once owned by the important Cecil family
is now a public library.
The old St John The Baptist Church said to have one of the largest stained glass windows in England
and dating back to the twelfth century, stands proudly overlooking the town centre and looks no
different now than what it did when I was a lad seventy years ago.
Well folks, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my short story of our town of Dronfield, describing how life
was then to how life is today, seventy years on. I’ll sign off in my usual way with a poem. It’s about the
promises made by politicians after the Second World War, promises that have fell by the wayside.

A BETTER WORLD

We fought a war for a better world,
Way back in the nineteen forties.
Against the crafty Japanese
And the cruel Nazi parties.
Great cities were destroyed by deadly bombs
That rained down from the skies in tons.
Women screamed and children cried,
Thousands of our people suffered and died.
All for a better world!
Navy ships were sunk by submarines
Ending many of our young sailor’s dreams.
Their life’s cut short while young and fit,
When the Nazi submarines torpedoes hit.
All for a better world!
Clothing coupons, ration books,
Butchers shops with meatless hooks.
Powered eggs, tins of Spam,
Beef dripping and bread and jam.
All for a better world!
But a better world we never got,
After the big guns had fired there last shot.
Now we have mass unemployment, drugs and crime
So somehow! somewhere! along the line.
We missed our better world!

I hope you have enjoyed this story I’ve told
Of Dronfield Town now and the Dronfield of old.
Of times that were good and times that were bad,
Of times long ago when I was just a lad.
I’ll wish you good luck and complete happiness,
Thanks for your time, good health and God Bless.

By Alfred Weston
© Copyright Reserved 2003