STEEL TOWN 1958

A promotional documentary about Samuel Fox & Company, showing the steel works and its employees at work and leisure. 

A van is shown driving along Manchester Road at Stocksbridge - it is fascinating to see how things were at the time, with all the lorries and buses which serviced the works driving through what many people still thought of as a village.  This was at a time when almost every family in the area had a connection to the steelworks, and you can see just how much it featured in the lives of the local people, from providing employment to encouraging leisure activities - social clubs, the brass band, fishing, pigeon fancying, archery, the Victory Club with its dances, bands and snooker tables, and so on.

Workers can be seen arriving by bus and on foot - when I was young, I remember the sea of people who would be walking to start or end their shift in the works.  When my dad was young, he remembered even more people, all the men wearing flat caps!  Around 7,000 people worked there at the time.

The cameras follow various workers doing their jobs, including the women, and also go into the local schools, Belmont Training Centre, the canteen and the physio room. 

People named in the film include Roy Westwood, Roy Siddons and his daughter  Maureen, Frank Bagnel, Stan Collins, Harry Rogers, Arthur Eastwood, and Harry Day and his wife (she is shown at home on the Stubbin and out shopping in the town and the market).

It is a fascinating peek into the past of our valley.