At the end of November, The Stirrings in Sheffield on a Saturday Night, was performed by Tideswell Community Players in the atmospheric Cathedral of the Peak.
Written by Alan Cullen in the 1960s, the play portrays the desperate working conditions of the saw grinders and other workers of 100 years earlier. The stone and steel dust mostly finished a man off in his late 30s. If he was a cutlery fork grinder, he would be lucky to reach 30! (If there was a lockout and families were starving, men would go to work for a paint company where the lead pollution was so high their life expectancy was just six months – “they died like sheep”).
These “Outrages” mostly came to an end when the new editor of the Sheffield Telegraph pushed for a Court of Inquiry and interviewed many of the intimidated workers himself, (there was no real prosecution service in those days). The court found Broadhead guilty and he was deported. He was quite lucky because 60 years later he might have been executed.
All of this was touchingly portrayed by the players, who used music hall type songs to bring home the message. Even the tune of the National Anthem was used for God save great Thomas Payne, His “Rights of Man” to explain” etc.
Wrapped into the play are amusing scenes about the rivalry between two opposing gas companies as they attempt to lay their pipe tracks. Even the opening of the new Botanical Gardens is dealt with in song and dance. Ironically, those of us who saw this play in the 1960s, saw it at a time when unions were quite well respected and bombing on mainland Britain was unheard of. The following 10 years changed all that!
The singing, acting and production of this play was very good indeed, and even their remarkable poster is worthy of framing and hanging in the best room!
Brian Woodall.