I loved creating this exhibition in the then newly-renovated post hall at Sheffield Institute of The Arts. It launched 10 years ago today, a chance to say hats off to the fantastic GPO employees who starred in it.

Of course, its been something of a decade since ace snapper Nigel Barker and me gathered these 70-somethings (older in some cases) together in the old post hall where they had worked in the 1950s and 1960s. What we found were some proper Sheffielders who hadn’t set foot in the building for 50 years or more, but were indelibly forged and formed by it.

They were absolutely brilliant to work with - Betty and Mary even being chosen to share their memories on Radio Sheffield and styling it like pros, no media training required.

It’s bittersweet to look back like this as we’ve lost some of those photographed here - to say nothing for the changes we’ve all encountered in the subsequent years - Brexit, the Horizon scandal, Covid.

But it’s an opportunity to reflect on a fantastic generation and the contribution they all made to the city.

4.14am and awake. Not just emerging from the clubs, I could have easily gone back to bed. Instead, 45 minutes later, I was communing with Africa and uncovering an ancient stone circle with the Wadsley Commoners.

Sheffield has the largest collection of Friends groups in the country, and the Commoners, established in 1993, are one of the most enduring. They’ve uncovered 93 species of bird in that time but May is special - visitors have arrived from Africa.

My 10 minute walk is soon put into perspective. These lads have schlepped 5000 miles just to put on a show for us.

Head birder John Robinson can barely contain his delight. Coming across as an ornithological gameshow host with catchphrases galore: (“A bombardment of song”, “What a performer”, “A cast of thousands”), John is so intune with the Common and its guests that he can ask us to listen for a trill, only for the aforementioned bird to respond seemingly just for us

In little over an hour, the 22 wanderers (appropriately enough on cup final day) are rewarded with the machine gun etiquette of the Wren (103 notes in seven seconds, better than Sun Ra), the waterfall cascade of the warbler and the no-two-tunes-the-same of the song thrush. Also in the mix, goldfinches, coaltits, chiffchaffs and curlew.

But it’s the yellowhammer we’ve all come for. While we search, Aguirre Wrath of God style perhaps, for the bread and cheese guys, John leads us on a merry walk, stopping to explain how recently recovered low lying heathland has created an ecosystem rarer than Equatorial rainforest. The Common is vast, so volunteers have to tackle little pockets to keep the birds coming back.

And here we stop for some magic… the work has uncovered the site of an ancient stone circle, the headstone clearly visible in the early morning sun.

We are reminded again how special, and rare, the Common is. And it’s still only 6.17am.

The search for the yellowhammer, alas, is unsuccessful, despite John's knowledge of where to spot them. But it’s the journey, not the destination. An enriching two hours, virtually touching Africa and ancient civilisations while Sheffield is waking up.

At the launch of Daniel Dylan Wray’s fantastic travelogue through Sheffield’s music scene, it felt like everyone in the crowd should have formed a band but, of course, everyone was already in them.

I counted members of Pulp, Sister Wives, Moonlandingz Clock DVA, Treebound Story, the Longpigs and Death Ramps (admittedly they were all Richard Hawley), Clock DVA and Jim Ghedi in the Crookes Social packed crowd, where copies of Groovy, Laidback and Nasty could be found tucked under the arm like Warp releases. Here’s five things I’ve learned from my week inside the city's brilliant but often undocumented, scene (warning: contains mild spoilers but everyone SHOULD read Groovy, Laidback and Nasty , or, if you need a taster - these pieces in the Guardian and the Tribune will help, as well as this fantastic playlist by White Rabbit Books)

Much like the industry that shaped the city's soundtrack, Sheffield music is often a catalyst to creativity elsewhere

From the 1960s through to the present day, Groovy, Laidback and Nasty paints a convincing picture that Sheffield should be celebrated far more for the way it has shaped music and culture. Not just by doing a Manchester and blue plaque-ing it all. Daniel’s compelling argument isn’t so much about your Pulps, Human Leagues and Monkeys (although there’s plenty in the book about them too), but the dancefloor grafters and eccentric workers, DJs, bleep artists and record labels that have underpinned the city’s myriad of scenes. From New Order recording its first sessions in Western Works, a studio owned by Cabaret Voltaire, to one of Clock DVA co-writing Everything Changes for Take That, Groovy, Laidback and Nasty celebrates the value and generosity of Sheffield’s musical community. It is very much its own ecosystem, but one that has not just given back and sustained the city but gone viral. Just by getting on and doing it, in many cases.

Celebrating women in a very bloke-first culture

For the first time in a history of Sheffield music, the role that women have played in shaping the city’s music and musicians is brought to the forefront. You can’t manufacture that story, of course, and there’s a whole lot of blokes in bands here too. But from Violet May, the fearsome septugenarian record shop owner who gave Richard Hawley a musical education and career by stocking rare imports up in Park Hill, to Pete Stringfellow’s mum on the door of the Azena for the Beatles, through to Kate Jackson of the Long Blondes and all the way to Self Esteem, this book celebrates them equally, In fact, Roisin Murphy, who came to Sheffield and formed Moloko in the whirl of 90s underground clubland, gets the quote of Groovy, Laidback and Nasty: “The people who went out and got it for themselves and it wasn’t easy. It was graft …. there isn’t a Sheffield sound but there is a Sheffield soul. And there’s a rigour within that soul.”

More sub-genres and micro-niches than hot dinners

Much like I imagine a night at a Kabal happening or Niche nightclub, this book gets better the longer it goes on, or maybe that’s just the breathlessness and exuberation with which I read it. As a fairly recent arrival in the city, 2009 to be precise, there’s lots of stories here that are ingrained in my musical memory, and others that are just universal and don’t necessarily need re-telling. To his credit, Daniel acknowledges them but doesn’t prioritise the big-hitters. He also acknowledges that providing the same heft for the 1960s and 1970s scene just isn’t possible with so many of the characters gone or too hazy to recall. Instead we get big and vital sections on the Cabs, Pink Grease, Moloko and Milburn too - as well as new takes on Ramases (seeb my earlier blog post), Jive Turkey and Crooked Man (Parrot). And a peppering of Adrian Flanagan - pitfalls, performance art and all.

No one star of Sheffield’s musical story

Having spent some time living in Hull and reflecting recently on Paul Jackson’s role in shaping that city’s musical identity (only Hull had a Paul Jackson, the Hull Daily Mail said about Paul and his defining Adelphi Club), there isn’t really an equivalent character who is solely responsible for the Sheffield musical scene. No Tony Wilson, which is probably a good thing (and described by Richard Kirk as the “schoolteacher who’d let you have a go on his spliff”). As Daniel says, our city and people are almost pathologically self-deprecating. But in Groovy, Laidback and Nasty there are two who probably could make that claim and cut through it like a stick of post rock - Richard Kirk of the Cabs for the way he templated industrial sonics and innovation through the Cabs, and, latterly, Winston Hazel, whose fingers are over so many club nights, remixes and re-imaginings from the 90s onwards - from Jive Turkey and Occasions through to remixes for Pulp and on Warp. But the biggest star is the city itself - there’s no one band, no one scene, that defines it all. No two bands that sound the same. Even when it comes to New Yorkshire, the movement that probably drew me to the city 18 years ago, there’s no two bands that are truly identical. Sure, Milburn templated a guitar sound that can be heard across many a Saturday Tramlines these days, with occasionally diminished returns, but Daniel shies away from this, and more on to electronica, dance and underground scenes.

What have we learned

This book is an illuminating, exhaustive and occasionally exhausting (again that might just be me and the speed in which I read it) book which deserves your attention, no matter what and where your entry point to Sheffield music is. Daniel leaves no stone un-turned (well, maybe Femur - apologies if I missed them in my haste) and if anything, there’s just too much to go at. There may be seven or eight books-worth contained in these pages. There are also some wonderful quotes and observations, including how only Sheffield could create the National Centre for Pop Music and never visit, but to set up an illegal club night in the basement which is a huge and memorable success. And all of this is made even better by the fantastic soundtrack to all of this on Spotify, bringing I’m So Hollow, Clock DVA and Chakk back into the public consciousness, where they deserve to be. Much like the city, and the premise of this blog, there is so much to go at in Sheffield, but you have to have some patience, and actively look for it. Groovy, Laidback and Nasty is a fantastic shortcut to opening up your ears to the most innovative and musical city in the country, and one that continues to evolve and expand.

Groovy, Laidback and Nasty is out now on White Rabbit Books.

Turns out that years before Fox Valley and the most haunted bypass in the country, Deepcar was already putting itself on the map. As far back as 8,000 BC, the earliest evidence of human beings in the Sheffield area was found at a Mesolithic camp of hunter gatherers at Deepcar. With many streets in the north-west of Sheff still to be ticked off on city painter, I hope to bring evidence of this in future editions.

2. Beware the Boggard bogeymen

Now a popular running route for Bradfield School and the Worrall Chase, there’s arguably a certain frisson when you go down Boggard Lane, particularly at dusk. Figures, as it turns out it is haunted by a ghost. A spectre or bogeyman, with long teeth and saucer eyes, is known to roam this track, causing runners and horseriding to allegedly ‘take boggard’. Picture courtesy of Picture Sheffield.

3. I’d like my bacon the crozzled side of crisp, please

Google the word Crozzle and it’s likely to bring up an online crossword. But delve deeper and it turns out it’s all over the city. The topping of stone walls is actually furnace slag, whereas well cooked crispy bacon is known as crozzled. These Sheffield facts rock!

4. Badgers and wolves, yes, but Owls, maybe not

The book is an absolute goldmine for place and street names. Brocco Bank takes its name from badgers, whilst wolves used to prowl in the ancient Wooley Wood long before it became known for its spring bluebells. But Owlerton, just down the road from me, is actually nothing to do with our feathered friends, but instead takes its name from the Alder Tree - a whole settlement of them!

5. At your service, 70s style

It’s not just olden days myth and folklore explored by Rotherham, Jones and Handley. Just take a look at the Grill and Griddle, on the M1 Services at Woodhall. Fine dining on the South Yorks border!

Secret Sheffield is published by Amberley Press.

From the 1995 Sheffield documentary Tales From A Hard City (billed as a visual cousin to Pulp’s Common People by some), to Andy Cropper’s amazing paintings of a murky brutal city, and from the astonishing tale of how electronic music that launched the careers of ABC and Pulp came not from a South Yorkshire Hansa Studios but instead from a kitchen extension studio in Handsworth, to the first results of the largest ever National Folklore Survey (full disclaimer - I was on the focus group for this Sheffield Hallam-led project), this post looks at some recent Sheffield cult tales and hopefully finds some common themes, glimpses of inocence and ingenuity from a bygone world - the Sheffield of the latter-half of the 20th century.

Tales From A Hard City Exhibition - Post Hall, Sheffield Hallam (No Bounds)

“Tales From A Hard City” was a British documentary film that first aired in the early 1990s, offering an unflinching look at the realities of life in Sheffield during a period marked by economic hardship and social change. It focused on authentic, personal accounts of struggle, humour, and hope but not in a radio-friendly Full Monty way, this instead focused on the real lives of young (ish) people dreaming of a better future, from the cigar-chomping impressario Wayne who takes a troubled teenager, Sarah, with beautiful dreams and tries to launch her signing career. This film is all about hustling on the very bare bones thrown at them by society - without the big drama and narrative arcs. The filmmakers had previously made works at the Ingle Gym and profiled the career of Sheffield great Johnny Nelson so they were well used to finding the city’s gritty and resilient edges.

The exhibition also features some great bullet-proof dialogue and character synopsises, as well as some period Bill Stephenson photography from Park Hill, the Ingle Gym (including a young Prince Naseem and his brother) and Josephine’s Nightclub. As I walk round I’m struck by how there is an innocence to all these characters- they believe in themselves in a world not dominated by social media. Would they be so vivid and individual today, or would they have been outed as the hucksters and charlatans they possibly were? They are so very convinced. I remember when, back in the early 80s, I convinced a school dinner lady that I was the son of Genesis keyboard player Tony Banks (who I’d probably seen on Tiswas). I don’t know why - I didn’t even like Genesis - and so, Mrs Tully, if you’re reading this… Like the characters in the movie, there was no AI, fact-checking or socials to prove or disapprove my story, and it clearly wouldn’t have stood up to any scrutiny whatsoever.

The film is a hard watch from a hard city, and probably a way away from a Disney remake. But it’s compelling to see these snapshots from a Sheffield I never knew.

Andy Cropper recent works - Cupola Gallery

Andy Cropper’s work is very much a celebration of the Sheffield all around us, but he focuses on the beautiful in the brutal - abandoned and ricketty footbridges ( “Muggers Bridge” is one of these and reminds me of the added frisson of cutting across the tracks to the city while out on a run, hanging proudly in my landing), and the Farfield Inn - neglected and untouched since it closed in the early 2000s after the Sheffield floods. As I look at his latest retrospective, and amid rumours that he’s going to conjure up something very different next, I think about how there is a certain folklore in his prints - he documents something forgotten, temporary, atmospheric and haunting in his work, and it all tells a tremendous story of a changing city. Definitely something different for the living room.

Studio Electrophonique, Cabaret Voltaire and the Sleeping Forecast

It’s been a great month for Sheffield on the fringes of radio - not one but two great Freak Zone and After Dark broadcasts featuring the music chosen by Cabaret Voltaire, and the absolutely brilliant curation of Ken Patten’s kitchen studio, Studio Electrophonique, and the sounds that came out of it in the 1980s. Known as the Colonel and offering home recording studio facilities from his council semi in Handsworth, a convoy of future indie legends like Jarvis Cocker, The Future (Human League) and Vice Versa (ABC) schlepped down the Richmond Road to Ken’s place to cut their first records. I took a bus to the Ballifield Estate recently to trace the places expertly captured by Jamie Taylor’s Studio Electrophonique book.

Ken’s house has long since fallen silent and there’s no blue plaque to mark wear Pulp recorded their very first demo (which led to their first Peel Session) in 1980. But that adds to the myth doesn’t it? How could something so angular and futuristic be recorded here, opposite the Everest pub and a parade of typical estate shops? Again, could it even happen now or would people like Ken have been phased out by Garage Band and Bandcamp? Regardless, happen it did and the Studio Electrophonique playlist on Freak Zone is a joy to listen to. Through the angular grooves you can almost imagine a disapproving Ken (whose own preference was calypso and gypsy jazz) and his wife Lorna (who made biscuits but ordered the removal of footwear) listening to Twist ( later version is on the excellent Dreams To Fill The Vacuum compilation) and wondering: is this the way the future’s meant to feel? My kind of ghost story. For another audio treat, Jarvis Cocker has announced a one-off Sleeping Forecast radio show - my napping ears are already soothed by the prospect.

The curious tale of Mr Fox and the National Folklore Survey

Great news this week that, on the cusp of Halloween, the first findings of Sheffield Hallam’s Centre for Contemporary Legend have been released into the wild.

Dr David Clarke, who led the study, has been a face of the strange and alternative across Sheffield for many years, first covering the country’s most haunted bypass in Stocksbridge and then being one of the leading voices between the re-emergence of Sheffield Castle, and the myths and legends that surround it.

He enlisted me onto the focus group for the survey and it’s great to see it coming to fruition, giving us a comprehensive look at what, and why, we believe. And we believe a LOT.

On that note, and to celebrate Halloween, I was amazed to discover, via the Tribune, this vintage Nationwide clip of the ghostly sightings of Mr Fox in the very basement where I park my bike for the day job.

These dancing girls, and one solitary hapless boy, have long since gone to be replaced by the Cavendish Street jobcentre. I wonder how many of the current occupants know of the ghostly goings-on brilliantly captured in this 1970 film? It also reminds me of the podcast I put out in 2019 about Britain’s most haunted Starbucks, the former Carbrook Hall in Attercliffe. At the time, I cringed a bit at the clunky audio, but was it just ghosts in the machine? Six years on, there’s still, if you choose to look for them, all kinds of marks of Sheffield’s folkloric past. And, thanks to Studio Electrophonique, the Cabs, Jarvis et all, those cultural witch marks are still being made in 2025. Happy Halloween folks!

As afternoons in S3 beer gardens go, it’s pretty memorable.

Rory Finch is smiling as he recalls a weekend in September unlike any other, when he became Sheffield’s Strongest Novice Man. His trophy is pride of place in his small office at Made To Move, the sports injury clinic he’s been running in Neepsend, Kelham in Sheffield since 2020. His elbow is strapped due to an injury sustained in the long and sprawling pub garden of a working man’s club in Deepcar - but this was no drink-related mishap.

The Lowood Workmen’s Club has been hosting Sheffield’s strongest competitions for several years - and its latest winner, at just 30 years of age, might just have an eye on a tilt at the world title - held several thousand miles away in Texas.

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Rory’s story, which he shares with me alongside some stonking peanut butter brownie on a sunny Friday in Kelham, is a case of strength through adversity. One of eight children living something of a peripatetic existence - Northampton, London, and Essex before his teens - his life changed forever at the age of 17 when his dad died.

“That was a pivotal point in my life, a rare chance to step back and think. I was a carpenter then and had given up sport when I dislocated my shoulder in playing rugby, amongst other injuries and setbacks. After my dad died, my aunts and uncles got me into supported living. I went back to college to do a sports coaching and fitness development course and knew straight away it was the career for me. I took a Sport & Exercise Therapy degree at Leeds Beckett University and never looked back.”

Fast forward 14 years, and his extended family are there again, on a changeable afternoon in a Deepcar pub garden, cheering on Sheffield’s red king - it’s what Rory means in Scottish, and the name has stuck with the running club he is a key part of. Around 60 fans, many of them Sheffield Business Runners, have joined him, in Red King tee-shirts and inflatable hats.

Also there with him is Laura Hollywood, whom he first met in a fitness studio several years ago and is now one of his firmest friends - in every sense of the word.

Laura, from Sheffield, who can lift about three times her bodyweight while most of us are lifting a few bags during the Aldi shop, won Europe’s Strongest Woman event earlier this year, and is heading for the States to compete for the World Strongman Games title this November.

Rory guided Laura through “injury reduction and therapy” ahead of the competition, which included at least 12 hours of workouts a week and eating about 3,000 calories a day.

Then, it was her turn to turn coach him for the day, as Rory upped the ante to gain 12kg in weight by taking on the equivalent of about 5,000 calories per day.

Rory grins and says, “When you’re training, you don’t feel fitter! I had to put on 12kg, so I had a really intense bulking phase – horrendous, I just felt sick and horrible in the peak of it. I tell people who I work with that if you want to get stronger, you have to go through periods of eating more and putting weight on, not just dieting to get stronger. And that’s how it was with me.”

But by the time the competition came around, Rory was in peak condition - but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a bit nervous about some of the big guns he was facing.

“Some were a lot bigger than me, and I was like, shit, just trying to scope each other out, the nerves kicking in. I just had to focus on it. ”

Through five events - from 200kg deadlift reps for 60 seconds (a sweet 16 put him in the lead), through to the 180kg Yoke, 180kg sled pull in the pouring rain, then a 140kg stone hold (“my thumbs were dislocating!”), and finally, a 100kg sandbag relay for good measure, Rory was never out of first place. A wink from one of the judges at the end was all he needed to know - he was Sheffield’s Strongest Man.

But that’s not the end of the journey, he says. After focusing on himself, he’s turning his thoughts back to the sports injury clinic with physio, sports therapists and trainers he’s built from the ground up after graduating with spells at Leeds Rhinos and Sheffield United. He has a mission to support people who don’t get the support they need after injuries, to find their way back to full strength and fitness.

He says: “We’ll just see, I’m 30 years old and the masters is massive. My coach Chris Fitzgerald, who is a phenomenal coach and athlete who has helped me achieve this win in just seven months, has just competed in the World’s Natural Strong Man in the under 90kg Masters category and won England’s strongest man in just one year, so there’s no ceiling to what can be achieved by me or anyone else. You might think, ‘I can’t lift that,’ but anyone can do it– it’s all technique-driven.

“I really enjoyed going to Strong Saturdays at Structure Sport & Fitness on Duchess Road, and that’s how I got started on this journey - just loads of men and women of different strengths, sizes, and experiences, lifting logs, stones, and axles. I started doing that, and it was really fun, really good, so I started doing it more, and you get sucked into it. So who knows what’s next?”

As he eyes a holiday, he thinks about how the next few years might pan out for him.

“When you’re in supported housing, you’re not thinking about the future, you’re just thinking about that moment in time. When I went to Colchester Institute back in 2013, my mentors pushed me, saying ‘you can do better than that’, and I ended up with a triple distinction (the highest grade you can get) – they helped me to visualise things in the future.

“Once upon a time, I might have wanted four or five clinics, but just having this one business, I’ve sacrificed some relationships, opportunities, and more. I value my time, energy, and being present these days. I would like more freedom so I can think about having a family in the future.

“My father didn’t come to sports days or events with me and my brothers when I was a kid, being a young boy craving support and direction, those feelings of disappointment still stay with me today. I feel I’d want to make sure I did things differently. And I just want to build an amazing facility and business where the staff can thrive and we can have a big impact on people being more healthy, strong, supported, and embrace their abilities confidently.”

He may be Sheffield’s strongest man, but that feels like real strength in depth there from the Red King.

With thanks to James Travis from the Winners of Sheffield podcast for extra insight.

I’ve written extensively about Ramases, the Malin-Bridge raised heating engineer who became Ramases, the shaven-headed reincarnation of a pharaoh. Ramases (real-name Barrington Frost), like all such similar folk in the 1970s, recruited 10CC as his backing band, Roger Dean as his illustrator, and put out some gently mystical prog pop psych records - that very few people bought.

On my birthday, I was gifted a reissue of his Space Hymns record (a repress from the 2010s, the gifter is a generous fellow but not £450, original Vertigo label generous - plus he’d have to find one).

I haven’t listened to it yet (having of course heard it over the years). I can’t get beyond the sleeve - it feels like that is so audacious that anything on the actual earthly vinyl wouldn’t live up to the fold out which transforms a rocket-fulled church spire in Droitwich into a giant image of Ramases and Selket. No wonder it’s a cult treasure of which Psych-Sheff should be proud. It’s been a great summer of new vinyl from CMAT’s astonishing Eurocountry to the perfect pop of Wolf Alice and the angry funny Half Man Half Biscuit, but unlike those records on constant rotation, Ramases hasn’t had a sniff. Probably because the sleeve is unlike any other I’ve got in my collection (Ogdens-aside) - creativity, magic, psychedelics and a fantastic story at its heart.

My new jam is Ursula K. Le Guin

I’ve been a long-term fan of Backlisted, the podcast that brings fresh life into old books. It seems America is catching up - two New York live events coming up in October. The episode last week on Ursula K Le Guin and the Tombs of Atuan is a case in point - I really need to read her trilogy of books after hearing Frank Cotterel Boyce get emotional about the cost of power. Even better is the audio of Le Guin’s 2014 National Book Awards acceptance speech - a sweet-voiced octogenarian letting rip.

“I rejoice in sharing this with all the writers who were excluded from awards for so long … writers of the imagination … who for the last 50 years watched the beautiful awards go to the so-called realists. I think hard times are coming when we will be seeking the voices of writers who offer alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies.”

Quite.

Didn’t we have a lovely time the day we heard from Buxton

I love Adam Buxton, but I think I’ve heard more of his dulcet tones this summer than I have from anyone else this summer - and my kids talk a lot. From his audio book I Love You Byeeeee layering on oodles of sweet nostalgia for his (and my) formative years watching the Adam & Joe Show to hearing him voice the audio commentary for the fantastic Stanley Donwood exhibition at the Ashmolean, This Is What You Get - walking the line between Buckles and Smuggles. This week, he’s interviewed David Byrne too. I fear I may be approaching Peak Buxton.

Forget Eldorado, try finding a padel court in Sheffield

Sheffield continues to innovate across art, culture, music and sport. My What’s App this summer has gone crazy with a bunch of Padel junkies desperately on the hunt for a fix of court, or, occasionally, transferring £6 to strangers for a chance of some doubles action. The sport was only introduced last year, and I’ve been having to drive across the city to Abbeydale, to get my fix and try to learn the ropes. I thought I was doing okay until I saw Cameron Dawson and Joe Root on an adjoining court. Anyway, the fantastic Courtside has now opened in Hillsborough Park, quickly obliterating objections to the loss of important and free municpal space by offering Padel, tennis and, yes, crazy golf, to the S6 massive.

Problem is, the courts get booked quicker than Radiohead tickets. Hence my What’s App gpoing into overdrive, as we attempt to lock down space at improbable hours for that sporting fix. New courts appear to be appearing all over the city too - Kelham next week. And I’m taking part in a 24-hour padel marathon next week (the first in the UK!) to play with new friends like Northern Wine Guy to raise funds for the Weston Park Cancer Charity, at something unholy like 4 in the morning. What’s going on???

I confess, when I set up the Looking Up Sheffield podcast, many moonbeams ago, I wanted listeners to look up at the buildings, the skies and the gargoyles all around them as they traversed the city.

But, sometimes, it pays to look down too - to embrace balance, darkness and light, history, ingenuity, ecosystems, rivers and a world-build that exists under thousands of commuters’ feet without them even knowing about it - yes, a journey to the megatron. I went for a walk with the Sheaf & Porter Rivers Trust to find out more about the city, and rediscover things I thought I’d lost about myself.

1. It’s a journey into the heart of darkness - Sheffield style

John, one of the two tour guides who has taken us - in waders, hard hats and miners’ lamps like we’re starring in Jeunet & Caro’s Delicatessen - into the heart of Sheffield’s Victorian storm drain network, dims his lamp, and asks us all to do the same - and we are suddenly in the absolute pitch black.

Above us, the city carries on in its admittedly understated summer Sunday way, unaware (apart from the local constabulary who have to be notified that there’s a bunch of hardy explorers under ground, in case of mishap, claustrophobia or cray fish attack), while we go on a two-hour walk along the River Porter and Sheaf (didn’t even get my 10,000 steps though, its slow going amid the knee deep water and wild life rubble we have to navigate). In parts, we have to drop to all fours to navigate this series of tunnels which diverted the rivers, erased the ponds and swamps, and readied Sheffield for the arrival of the Midland railway and, later, the Parkway and digital campus, complete with slide. Lamps back on, we resume our type-one type fun.

We’ve had to crawl on all fours to get here, under the Leadmill (Jarvis famously sung about the experience in Wickerman, see the lyrics reproduced here) and I’ve never been more grateful for lockdown yoga with Adrienne to be flexible enough to negotiate the space. Our collective worlds just got larger, and smaller, at the same time - a journey into the very heart of darkness. There’s even a Curt on the tour. Close enough.

2. But ultimately, it’s about welcoming in the light

It may be a celebration of darkness, but this fantastic tour, organised by the Sheaf & Porter Rivers Trust, is really about welcoming the light and the life back into the rivers, famously closed off for so long. Daylighting has enabled new perspectives and wildlife to return, no more globules from little mesters or Cocker’s caramel undertones.

Ultimately, the volunteers are leading up to four summer tours a day to raise £60,000 so that commuters on platform five can actually see the river under their feet. There’s a trapdoor (I’m counselled against opening it in case a train falls in (note, this would be unlikely unless it was a very small train) which could be replaced with re-inforced glass. A second portal opens up “somewhere on the Parkway”. The light is something that we embrace throughout the tour - emerging from a tunnel into glorious nature like we’re in Threads Redux, or seeing a beguiling glimpse of the newly exposed Castlegate pocket park like an eye of Sauron at the end of the Megatron rainbow. Like much of Sheffield, the tunnels are very filmic - as well as Threads, Delicatessen and Apocalypse Now, I think of Orson Welles, and the Wonkatania.

3. Those Victorians were really clever

Diverting the river in a series of elaborate and complex tunnels must have required huge fortitude from our Victorian forefathers. The tunnels inevitably came before the station, and there are beautifully crafted features that they must have laboured through without any notion of what was to come, and what it was all for. They just got on in all conditions and built our future dreams and nightmares.

4. Your brain does weird things in there

Spoiler: once you’ve got past the fact that you are crawling through a series of tunnels in darkness, with rubble all around you, debris from the rivers that feed in from Millhouses and beyond, discarded cutlery and pottery and once you’ve worked out how to stay upright, there’s not a lot to see in there.

But the smallest discoveries become enormous. A bit of pottery. A brick. Sean Bean stickers. Profound slogans on the entrances. What does it all mean? Regression is the main form of expression, as we gather excitedly around another small find. It’s like dystopian rockpooling with the kids, picking over the scraps of 200 years of Sheffield history. I found myself, like Martin Sheen, going inward. As we emerge, it feels like we’ve survived something.

5. The megatron is an ecosystem under our feet

It’s not just rubble down there. There’s crayfish/crustaceans, even the odd solo nomadic walker/photographer looking for that elusive shot of solitude.

The Trust stress that organised tours are the best way to experience the tunnels, and I was very indebted to human help as I nearly took a tumble or two, and the hard hats that kept my noggin free to let my mind wander into some dark and illuminating places. Not for the faint-hearted, the dyspraxic or the accident prone (I am a little bit all three and I loved it, but this was thanks to the amazing tour guides). An entirely unexpected afternoon bimble, all in all.

Pulp [Main stage, Friday]

Apologies for the Blurry picture, but there was much Intake-ing of disbelief at the magnificence of Pulp’s Friday performance. Defiantly focusing on tracks from More, (the squelching white funk of Slow Jam, the postcard voyeurism of Tina, the beautiful Scott Walker Wetwang hybrid of Farmer’s Market, the glam stomp of Grown Ups) shows how special this group from the Sheff and Rotherham borders are. We got all the Easter Eggs as they played to a huge Friday Tramlines crowd. First, Sheffield Sex City (Brincliffe, Attercliffe, Arborthorne) and then, for the first time ever (I did remember), Last Day Of The Miners Strike with Richard Hawley on additional guitar. Entirely right, entirely South Yorkshire.

CMAT (T’other Stage, Sunday)

It is, of course, Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson’s year, after that triumphant other festival down in the west (Euro) country, but her abridged 28-minute set here (4.15pm to 4.43pm) was a bit like the musical equivalent of taking some of George’s marvellous medicine but then having to leave before you experience the full effects. CMAT and her band are marvellous of course, but 28 minutes and six songs can never be enough. Just imagine the joy of her on the main stage next to the Last Dinner Party (also brilliant). That said, my daughter (her gateway, learning the TASPOM dance on TikTok) only needed one of those 28 minutes to be completely transfixed by CMAT so job done.

John Grant (t’other stage, Friday)

It’s John Grant’s birthday and so there’s no way he’s going to play Queen of Denmark in full. His 58th birthday treat to us all is a set of pulversing electro-funk and bleep, as he moves across three keyboard stacks with a shit-hot band. I am entirely stealing his look for my 50s (in fact, I’m googling How To Dress Like John Grant straight after writing this). We do get a mass singalong of GMF at the end which is wonderful. My favourite moment is seeing people enter the tent not knowing what to expect and leaving immediately. An absolute highlight of Pulp’s specially-curated Friday - where it feels like they’ve handpicked the bands just for me (if not for the indie-fodder expecting Tramlines crowd).

Franz Ferdinand (Main stage, Saturday)

Saturday at Tramlines with the kids took us to some places we wouldn’t entertain normally - the Lidl assault course, merch, the Big Wave and Sizzler coasters. No, not Sizzla, but just imagine … It also led to some unusual angles, here are Franz Ferdinand as snapped by my daughter from the Ferris Wheel. It’s a crystal clear perfect set though, with a fantastic female drummer in Audrey (props to the similarly great Hannah from CMAT and Caroline from TLDP too). (Dark Of The) Matinee is the perfect set opener and I want Alex Kapranos’ jacket if I have any spare cash from the £100 I’ve put aside to dress like John Grant).

The Reytons (Main stage, Saturday)

I was classically sniffy about the Reytons (just a Rotherham Arctic Monkeys tribute band, I might have said, like a 6Music Dad), but they absolutely boss Saturday night in Hillsborough - and are the band that my kids can finally agree on. Stealing the Best Intro to Tramlines crown from Pulp by fighting off ninjas emerging from a giant Trojan Horse, their set has singalong chants and humble frontmanning in equal measure, but with more guitar muscle and Fender-esque anthems than I may have been expecting. A perfect closer. See you at the Fringe next year?

Do you remember good Twitter, when funny vignettes would just happen and you'd tweet about them for a small number of likes and retweets? And it felt good. If it wasn't on Twitter then, it probably didn't happen. But the funny things kept on happening. Blue Sky fantastically failed to chronicle such minutiae, but Substack? That could go the distance. So, inspired by Jude Rogers’ Ten Gentle Spells, a weekly chronicle of her musical life, here are Five Sheffield Shorts, where I tell of the funny asides and fantastic fun there is to be had in my adopted city. Only not all of them will happen in Sheffield. Still with me? Here we go.

Crossed Wires Festival, Sheffield, various venues

Of course the Glastonbury of podcasts should happen in Sheffield. With Persephonica leading the audio charges, supported by the great and good of our thriving cultural scene (Alice Levene, Michael Palin, Pete McKee, Nick Banks), any misgivings I may have had about an essentially introverted, solitary pursuit like listening to a podcast flying as a festival were soon kicked into touch. Crossed Wires is hugely social. I’ve never seen so many people from so many walks of my life all milling about the old handbag section of John Lewis to experience the festival fringe. I saw Russell Kane recording a Sheffield-centric episode of Evil Genius with a great panel, hilariously walking the line between cancelled and creatively unhinged. And Indie Forever, presented by 6 Music’s Nathan Shepherd, a man who looks like someone fed all the former members of Menswear into Chat GPT and asked it to animate the results. An illuminating chat was had, before an equally illuminating dance, where the perfumes used to be, just before the escalators. I love that Cole Brothers is being used in this way, although I imagine it might need to eventually become something else again - much like the festival itself; imagine how good it will be if it starts attracting the This American Lifes of the podcast world. Whenever I was having a tough day in comms, I’d go up to the top floor of John Lewis and look at tellies I couldn’t afford. Now I’m getting all this for free. It’s a space that is equal parts therapy, history and hangout for me and Crossed Wires is perfect for it.

Dogs are Everywhere, but especially Commonside and the Common

Arriving at the dog groomers in a posh suburb of Sheffield known as Commonside, I felt a warm feeling of 50-something contentment. I was on time and the dog wasn’t yet resembling some distressed miniature dulux. As I arrived, a similarly contented 50-something left the same groomers. We looked at each other, and realised we were wearing the same Lovely Eggs t-shirt. We did that Sheffield thing of totally ignoring each other in a cool and friendly way. A few years ago we would have snapped a picture, tagged it and put it on the socials. Instead, I went off to Freak Street for an Indian lunch. But I’ll soon be going back to the groomers, and this time I’ll be wearing a Kim Deal Nobody Loves You More tee. In other dog-related news, I met a dog called Lawrence up at the Common. This is a first. As a sharer of this name, I asked the owner why they’d plumped for Lawrence. “Because it’s not the name of our grandson,” they cryptically said. Unusual.

Tripping down memory lane, north London

Quite literally as it turns out, because Haringey has notoriously wonky pavements, and I was in the zone, but it was great to be back in Crouch End for the first time since 1994 for a six-mile mosey to Muswell Hill. I found that once I’d actually remembered how you got to the actual place from Finsbury Park, the memories came flooding back. Including a ghostly spotting on the Parkland Walk, buying Moby Grape, Burial and Triffids records from Terrapin Trucking, working my first bar job at the Queen’s Hotel - populated by West Indian domino players and the local ladies of the night - spotting Dave Vanian and Ray Davies on a regular basis and really just lucking out in a very lovely part of London. I was navel-gazing, and then I tripped on the wonky pavements just outside Dave’s old place. Neat, neat, not.

At the Chime Of A City Clock

Whilst adding some incidental vocals to my friend Jon’s record collecting podcast, Hunters & Collectors, we get to talking about Nick Drake. I play him one of the cuts on the Making Of Five Leaves Left, the new box set which traces the journey towards the release of his sophomore album. Hearing Nick’s voice at the start of a version of River Man, posh, solid, focused, totally in command of the song and what he wants, is a revelation. It fills me with joy. We get to musing about what Nick would have made of his complete resurgence, when he died pretty much convinced he was forgotten, “remembered for a while”. A while turns out to have been a pretty long while, punctuated by Proms and boxsets, and in 2025, here I am, recording a podcast in a London hotel room, hanging on his every word.

What’s been rocking my world

When I’ve not been playing padel, running Parkland Walks and Coal Aston gala chases, I’ve been reading the fantastic local journalism of Daniel Dylan Wray, Dan Hayes and Dave Bocking. Dave’s quiet posts around walking, wildlife and wetlands, are the perfect buffer between the madness of the working week and the better times of the weekend, the journalistic equivalent of a deep, grateful breath. Recent features by Dan of the Tribune on Birley Spa Bath House and DDW on Sheffield’s DIY scene are both worthy of your time. Until next time, Sheff cats and dogs, whatever your persuasions.

The Listening Party. Sounds vaguely Pinter-esque, or should that be punter-esque? Regardless, I’m at Spinning Discs Records in Norton Lees, Sheffield, to attend one of the many Pulp Listening Parties to announce the expanded line-ups new record More. It’s quite the thing.

I don’t know about you, but gathering a small, intimate crowd into Martin and Michelle Black’s excellent record shop on the edge of Meersbrook Park is almost a throw back to how we used to listen to records. None of that isolation of sticking it on Spotify, the Listening Party is almost the 21st century equivalent of bunging a TDK together (home taping is killing music), thus enabling a bunch of strangers to experience something communal, and new, together for the first time. Do you remember the first time? Definitely, in the case of More.

Of course, the flip side of all this is it’s an unusual experience too. Jarvis appears on screen, syncing his own white label copy in his living room (perfect for style makeovers, is that a Robert Indiana I see?) while Martin cues the same in the shop. And then, 50 or so people of all ages bop quietly and stare at their feet. Some carry on browsing records. We sway a bit to Spike Island, stomp our feet to the glam guitar here, maybe a suggestive lean here or a betrayed emotion there, but this is an intimate experience, expanded a bit. At the end of each song there is a hushed silence.

Maybe it’s the listening equivalent of a park run. Strangers gathered with a “thing that unites them”. With less chaffing. And chatting.

While all this is going on, some of the good folk of Meersbrook pass us by in the shop window, wondering what an earth is going on. Is it a mass burglary waiting for instructions? A failed seance? No, it’s 2025, and everything is off the table. And, also, on it.

Pulp being Pulp have enclosed a scorecard for every visitor, asking them to grade each song as a Spike (Island); Partial Eclipse or Slow Jam (titles on More of course). A very strange scoring criteria, as I would equate a spike with something to be discarded, while a partial eclipse depends on what you’re drinking and with whom and a Slow Jam is surely something we all need in this fast-paced world. That said, I’m pleased to say this is an album full of Positive Spikes, only two partial eclipses and one slow jam (Slow Jam). Make of that what you will.

Throw in a half-time raffle, some tote giveaways and white label spot prizes and you’ve got an event that is part jumble, part joy.

As for the songs themselves, you’ll have to wait a full week until you get to hear them in the modern way (and I suspect in record shops too). For me, More is around 60 per cent Pulp and 40 per cent Jarv Is - that’s not a bad thing but they are different beasts. Farmer’s Market is Scott Walker via Walkley (Scott, Walkley - see what I did there). A Hymn For The North is beautiful (“northern lights will guide you home”). A Sunset is the perfect closer (and across town the Leadmill hosted its last night in its current form). Tina is the best “girl’s name ending with an Ah since Deborah (Deborah) or Sylvia”.

Listening Parties then. An experience, an evolution, and see you all again next week right? An early intimate glimpse of a summer, and a reminder then that we have much in common, even if we struggle with eye contact.

Lovely do and thank you Spinning Discs!

Since I wrote this piece to celebrate Tom Newell’s Quasar One design as part of the Bears Of Sheffield trail in 2022, more information has come to light about the late Barrington Frost. There are even talks of a film about his life, featuring 10CC, the band who backed him in Stockport’s Strawberry Studios.

It turns out that Ram had connections in my neck of the woods, Greenock Street in Malin Bridge, before embarking on this crazy 70s trip.

Anyway, for now, enjoy this feature about the strange tale of Quasar One and Sheffield’s Ramases.

Quasar One and the strange tale of Sheffield’s Ramases - 2022

Behind every bear there is a story. Just ask Werner Herzog in Grizzly Man.

But, as Bears of Sheffield prepares to go wild across the city later this month let’s just paws – and bring you the strange tale behind the illustration on Quasar One, designed by celebrated local artist Tom Newell.

Behind Newell’s captivating illustrated 10-foot bear, one of the 60 giant sculpted beasts that will appear across the city from July 12, is a story that involves a Sheffield air-conditioning heating engineer who believed he was the reincarnation of Egyptian pharaoh Ramases and his singing partner and wife Selket (also known as Felixstowe 1957 prom queen Dorothy Laflin).

It is also a story that encompasses a record mogul who knew how to spot a hit, a sadly indifferent record-buying public and significant cameos from 1970s chart-toppers 10CC and acclaimed actor Peter Stomare (best known for feeding William H Macy into a woodchip machine in the original Fargo film).

Quasar One the bear is named after the song of the same name written by one Kimberley Barrington Frost, born in Sheffield in 1934. Now young Barry was the only child of musical parents – his mother played piano to silent movies in the local theatre, and his father was a tenor. Young Ram grew up singing and playing guitar from an early age.

Barrington was drafted into the RAF, and eventually became an army gym instructor. After completing his service, he met and married Dorothy, the aforementioned carnival queen of Felixstowe. The couple settled in London, where he worked as a jazz singer by night and an HVAC installer by day, while Dorothy waited tables. His employer offered him the opportunity to open a branch in Edinburgh, Scotland, but then went bankrupt shortly after so the Frosts stayed in Scotland and built up their own successful HVAC business in Glasgow.

So far, so 1960s. But that’s where Sheffield, and its obvious quirky influence, came to the fore. It’s not entirely known why Barrington ditched his steady job in air-conditioning but, in 1966, around the time he bought his Roman Villa styled house which he named Hadrian in Westwick Crescent, Beauchief, he began dressing in silk robes and going by the name Ramases.

Clearly, these were heady times for the bungalow-dwelling folks of Beauchief. There are stories that a now shaven-headed Frost may have swerved towards this new direction when, driving to install an HVAC for a client, he had a vision that he was the Pharaoh’s reincarnation, and he must take up the Pharaoh’s ecological message in a musical career. It isn’t known if the original Ramases also recorded primitive space folk rock anthems, but who hasn’t used that excuse to get out of work in all honesty? “Sorry, I can’t attend that meeting, I am the reincarnation of Ramases.”

Ram released his first single with Selket, Crazy One, backed with Mind’s Eye, in 1968. It failed to chart, but the Mind’s Eye itself was very much a part of Tom Newell’s design more than 50 years later.

During the lockdown, you could see Tom, whose artwork is all across the city on slipmats, stickers and scenes, putting the finishing touches to the eye, in a little studio next to Bear Tree Records.

Back to Ramases. Several early singles (recorded with his wife, whom he renamed Selket or Seleka) failed to make any impact, and it looked like, much like Tutankhamen, the rich grooves would be buried without a trace for millennia.

Symptomatic of this likely lack of success was the title of Crazy One, brilliantly sung by Sel, which had always been meant as Quasar One but was renamed somewhere down the line.

But then, in 1971, Harvey Lisberg became involved in Ramases’ story. Manchester-born Lisberg had rocketed to fame by signing Herman’s Hermits in 1963 as well as the Mindbenders, after Wayne Fontana’s departure. He became closely involved in Stockport’s Strawberry Studios in 1968 and started working with a young band called Hotlegs – back when blokes could call themselves by such names.

Lisberg heard the Ramases sound, fell in love with its expansive psychedelic vision and groove-based folk-ragas, and enlisted Hotlegs to work as the backing group. Hotlegs would soon become 10CC and chalk up hit after hit at the studios where Buzzcocks, Joy Division and the Smiths would later record, but back in the early 70s they were road-testing their sound with compositions called Neanderthal Man and working with artists like Doctor Father. No, me neither.

Ramases would make the short-hop from Sheffield across the Pennines to Stockport to record with Gouldman, Stewart and Creme.

The result was the wigged out chanting of Space Hymns, housed, as it was the early 1970s, in the most expansive artwork Yes illustrator Roger Dean was ever allowed to produce, with a 6-panel fold out cover depicting a church steeple (St George’s Church, Stockport) lifting off into the cosmos. On the other side in infrared colour Ramases and Selket were shown holding aloft strands of wheat in a Demeter-like pose from the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Try saying that in a Sheffield accent.

Two singles were released from this album in 1971. First out was Ballroom backed by Muddy Water (Phillips 6113 001). Once again there was a typing error as it seems that Ramases never wrote a song titled Ballroom, but one called Balloon which eventually appeared on Space Hymns. The next single had Jesus Come Back backed with Hello Mister.

Space Hymns was released on the Vertigo label (6360 046) in 1971, and is a rather strange sounding album for the label that was, at the time, putting out records by the likes of Black Sabbath and Manfred Man’s Earth Band.

It includes the stunning and atmospheric Life Child, with flutes, bells, whistles and gently hypnotic guitar – it could almost be incidental music for Aguirre Wrath of God – before it turns into a fuzz and wah-wah behemoth. Vocally, Ramases himself is very much in a 70s vibe, with his line “I see your sun is coming down, I see your wreckage on the ground.” It’s hardly I’m Not In Love, despite being played by the same combo of musicians.

Hello Mister has a proper campfire vibe – “I just came from somewhere, can’t quite remember from where” certainly speaks of a certain hopeful alienation.

Quasar One itself again builds slowly – one of the weirdest love songs you could ever hear. Molecular Delusions is very odd indeed, but Balloon, with its hypnotic “Don’t burst your bubble” refrain, has pop hit written all over it. Honestly!

Less convincing, but absolutely as compelling, is You’re The Only One Joe, which uses the direct quote from Midnight Cowboy’s haunting dream sequence. This was the early 1970s, after all.

The album created a certain amount of hype within rock circles especially in England and Germany with its quasi-religious mysticism. See, we do have things in common!

There was no doubt that Ramases was predicted for a great future, even a tour with the Moody Blues, but there are very sketchy details of whether he toured the clubs of Yorkshire and beyond to consolidate the success of Space Hymns, or the considerable budget invested in it.

Instead, he retreated to Felixstowe (not a place renowned for its swinging pop scene or its abundance of bluff singing Yorkshiremen thinking they are the reincarnation of an ancient pharaoh). A second album, Glass Top Coffin, was released into the Bay City Rollers void in 1975, but this was one pyramid scheme that was failing to pay off.

Ramases himself was very disappointed with the cover of Glass Top Coffin. The original intention was to have a cut out showing a man falling backwards into space into the Horsehead nebula but the record company had other ideas. The songs were great, but Ram’s moment had passed.

The album did not sell well. A third album, to be titled Sky Lark or The Sky Lark, got as far as cassette demos, but Ramases became increasingly despondent and on 2 December 1976, aged 42, he took his own life.

A sad coda, and one of the last traces to his native Sheffield, was the sale of Hadrian, his Roman-themed split-level villa at the end of a cul-de-sac in Beauchief.

Listed for private sale in Derbyshire Life in 1976 through local agents Crapper & Haigh, with its magnificent lounge and views onto the local Golf Course, it was the last publicity associated with Barrington for nearly 40 years.

But all good Egyptian pharoahs, even pretend ones with a background in central heating, have a habit of reincarnating, right?

In 2014 actor (and Ramases fan) Peter Stormare collected together all of his surviving recordings, both released and unreleased, and compiled them into a six-disc boxed set. Selket herself was interviewed as part of the release. Watch a great video with Sel on You Tube here.

Original copies of Space Hymns go for up to £50 on Discogs and much more on Ebay. And now, thousands of Sheffielders will stand up close to a giant bear inspired by an air conditioning expert with a hotline to ancient Egypt and the psych-prog musical interface of the early 1970s.

Today, as Tom Newell prepares to wheel out Quasar One as part of the Bears of Sheffield, Ramases’ bungalow stands much altered at the end of Westwick Crescent. I take a drive down there but none of the residents recall a bald-headed Egyptian pharaoh living in their midst. Forget ancient Egypt, even the 1970s is a long time ago. I take a trip to Record Collector in Broomhill, but another Barry, the esteemed Barry Everard, is off today and he’s the only one who’d know. No, he doesn’t do emails. So, I phone my mate Keith, who is a fountain of knowledge on all things prog. He’s heard of Ramases, for sure, but it’s not as good as Amon Duul, but then what is?

I suggest Keith thinks again. Ramases may have flickered only briefly, but put Life Child or Balloon on today and be transported back to a time when you could legitimately claim to be a re-incarnation of an Egyptian God, write some far-out and spiritually sample-able tunes and take some high-profile people along for the ride. Now that’s a story that bears repeating.

Pictures of Tom Newell/Quasar One courtesy of Dave Johnson (check out Steel City Snapper on Instagram)

It's been a tough time for the arts in Sheffield. Many cultural gems have closed including Ignite Imaginations, who I was proud to be a trustee for. We’ll hear later from Luisa Golob, Ignite’s chief executive, on the charity’s rich artistic and cultural legacy in South Yorkshire. But, despite that sadness, we also hear, on International Women's Day, how our city is leading the fight back. The green shoots of recovery were present even as Ignite’s flame was finally extinguished.

In something of a symbolic passing of the baton, we speak to Linda Bloomfield from RivelinCo and the Montgomery Theatre, now part of the Crucible Theatre, which has huge plans for the future. But it’s a bittersweet time - Ignite Imaginations, which has been leading art and cultural workshops across South Yorkshire since 2004, announced its closure late last year, citing a climate where viable funding just wasn’t available.

As Linda says, it’s not a case of one organisation flourishing while the other fades away - collaboration and partnerships are at the heart of her vision for the city’s cultural future.

One thing is for sure, with new female voices at the heart of the Crucible, the Showroom and Sheffield Hallam, it’ll be women who develop the cultural offer for the city in 2025 and beyond. And they dare to dream. As Linda says, why shouldn’t Sheffield be city of culture someday?

Hi Linda! You spoke at the Ignite Imaginations farewell conference on Finding New Paths. Do you think the voluntary and creative sector is at a crossroads in Sheffield? Is it a message of hope?

“My talk at Ignite's conference was about the culture funding crisis, so unfortunately not a super positive one! But I hope it set up the day by giving us a grounding of knowing what we're facing so that we can collectively find solutions.

“I do think things are looking up in Sheffield - at a time when some other local authorities are cutting their culture funds and teams, Sheffield has invested in a new, forward-thinking cultural strategy and a culture team for the first time in a long time.

“There are definitely challenges ahead, but it does feel like the sector has come together to engage with and celebrate this work, and I do feel hopeful.”

You've had a fantastic start to the year. Let's start with news about the Montgomery Theatre becoming part of the Crucible Theatre. What does this mean for theatre production in the city?

”It's great and welcome news! The Montgomery is a fantastic theatre with an incredible 139-year heritage. So many people have come through its doors and people speak so fondly of it: often, it’s provided their first experience of performing with their school, or dance school, or as members of the community companies who have been performing there for more than 30 years. I'm delighted that the redevelopment has finally made it accessible for the first time in its history.

“The Montgomery becoming part of Sheffield Theatres will help safeguard the charity's long-term future and mean it can remain a hub for children, young people and communities for many more years to come.

“This can only be a positive thing for theatre in the city - Sheffield Theatres has more capacity and resources than the Montgomery ever had on its own, and together we'll be able to attract more funding and support, and provide more opportunities. It is my mantra in all my work that we should value collaboration over competition to result in a stronger and more equitable sector - I hope this will be a testament to that. My year at Montgomery has been challenging - seeing the development project through to completion and also managing this transition - but also a total privilege. I am proud to have been a trustee before joining the staff team, and I hope to return as a trustee again when my executive role is completed.”

And RivelinCo has just announced pockets of funding for community neighbourhoods. What sort of work are you hoping to fund?

”I think one of the best parts of this project is that we don't know what to expect! Our 2025 Neighbourhood Artist commissions will provide artists with up to £5,000 fee and up to £750 budget to make exciting, curious, fun projects happen with communities in six North Sheffield neighbourhoods.

“Each of the commissions will ask people how they feel about where they live, and we are working closely with community partners in each area who will be involved in choosing and supporting the projects.

“How they ask the questions is up to them, and we'd love to see a wide range of different activities which suit each neighbourhood: there might be street parties, parades, performances, workshops, community meals or something we haven't thought of yet!

“The information we gather through the projects will be mapped and used to co-design our programme going forward to make sure we're responding to genuine wants, needs, challenges and desires of each community and area.

RivelinCo now has a fantastic shop on Middlewood Road and is the heartbeat of creativity in Hillsborough. How does it feel to have got to this point?

”It's a huge relief - we had been looking for a space for a year when we finally landed this one. When we started looking there were a lot of empty shops in Hillsborough and Malin Bridge, but most of the landlords were absentee. It was really difficult to get in touch with anyone, and when we did a lot of negotiations didn't get anywhere, or would be pulled because the landlord decided to sell instead.

“I got so frustrated that back in May I tweeted about our experience, and it must have resonated because it was shared and seen by over a million people, and landed me on national radio, newspapers and in meetings with central government!

“I'm really proud that we fed into real policy change, called High Street Rental Auctions, which now gives local authorities more power over private landlords to ensure shops on our high streets don't sit empty. We've now had our shop space for almost two years and it's been great - it's given us proper space to organise and work together, and we've been able to share it with the local community as well for all kinds of different groups and events. It's a very nice way to mark our fourth birthday!”

There's sometimes a perception that funding finds its way to the south west of the city but grass roots creativity is springing up in Upperthorpe and Page Hall. Does RivelinCo have a part to play in ensuring this balance?

“We definitely can't claim all the credit, but I hope we've been a part of building more cultural and community infrastructure in the north of the city. The reason we work across north Sheffield is because of the wealth and opportunity divide in the city and we're delighted to work with like-minded partners from different sectors to make positive change. The more, the merrier!”

What's next??!

”We've just been through a year of strategic thinking, supported by the Footwork Trust, to build our first business plan. So behind the scenes we're making plans for 2025-30 to be our best, most exciting years yet. This year we're continuing to deliver our regular activities year-round, including singing, young creatives, creative creatures, share and repair and more. We'll be bringing back our popular Midsummer Festival in June, a big, free, collaborative community festival in Hillsborough Park.

“And of course we'll be delivering the Neighbourhood Artist projects that get selected for Hillsborough and Malin Bridge, Parson Cross, Stannington, Winn Gardens, Foxhill and Wisewood! Watch this space.”

Do you look across the Pennines to Bradford City of Culture and think... Sheffield next?

“I would absolutely love Sheffield to take on city of culture one day - I think the city has such a brilliant cultural ecology and city of culture would be a way to really celebrate that and show it off to the rest of the country and the world! We are a city of makers, with an incredibly rich history of DIY and working class entertainment, a huge participatory arts and creative health sector, a thriving visual and performing arts scene, and so much more! I think the engagement work on the cultural strategy has been a great first step, and if we can continue to come together as a sector to deliver it, then next time it’s due up North - why not us?”

‘We have given so many artists and participants that first step to new beginnings and confidence to pursue their creativity’ - Luisa Golob from Ignite Imaginations

“How do you prepare your last 10-minute speech in a role you have done all your adult life? I have been going through the grieving process for the past two years – as things started to look really difficult financially; denial, gulit, anger, depression, the sadness – the loss for our staff and artists, our participants and partners, all that hard work – will it all be lost and how will anyone know about the amazing work we did.

“Then, an upward turn in my thoughts – maybe it had served its time, maybe the model wasn’t working any more. It was such a hard but fulfilling journey, but it was hard. Then reconstruction – what do we do to ensure a smooth closure and what we do to support ourselves? Hope and acceptance – we did create brilliant projects, opportunities and work for the city for 20 years – we did and we will leave a mark. We have given so many artists and participants that first step to new beginnings and confidence to pursue their creativity.

“Once we close our website and social media, we have to become our own storytellers - of the change we made and the positivity we created.

“We enabled creative safe spaces for people to speak about their losses during Covid for the first time; gave that older person the chance to meet like-minded neighbours after such a long time being isolated; encouraged that young person to be able to have their art exhibited in the city. We did all those things and so much more.

“So here we are to reflect on where our next steps could take and how the arts sector can continue to be bold in these ever tougher times and our leaders can be resilient and ambitious without burning out.

“On a final note I remember presenting our new name and logo as we set out on our journey across the city saying we wanted to Ignite Imaginations, thinking how cheesy that sounded and sort of apologising for it. It doesn’t sound cheesy at all now. I know that at every level of our organisation we ignited imaginations and that’s all we could have done.”

Ignite will close its doors on the 31st March but anyone wishing to connect with the organisation’s artists will still be able to do so at https://www.igniteimaginations.org.uk/meet-the-artists

At first glance, Terry Howard's front room seems like any other near Octogenarians in Sheffield. But, like the stalwart campaigner, writer and cultural voice, if you look again, you'll discover something new.

Described by some who have crossed paths with him as a “Kinder Elder”, a wooden green man stands on a mantelpiece here, a bottle of Nelson’s Blood resides in a cabinet there, a dining table is covered in photos and artefacts from more than 70 years of rambling, campaigning and bringing a voice to the great outdoors that surrounds us.

Terry has been leading walks for the ramblers and Woodcraft Folk for decades, giving many their first experiences of the great outdoors. But, befitting a boy from Parson Cross, there’s more to his walks than the moors - he is a great advocate for off-the-beaten-track city trails, gennels and ancient woodlands too. He remembers an early yomp from his house in the north of the city to Margery Hill, because it had the same name as his mother. The adventures started early with Terry.

We had the pleasure of spending an hour in Terry’s company, where, despite the snow curtailing plans for a ramble over his beloved moors, we found that far from looking back on a celebrated life campaigning for greater access to Sheffield’s enviable, mysterious and historic back garden, he’s got books, films and projects-a-plenty on the horizon as he approaches his 80th birthday.

Whether it’s planning a reprint of his celebrated 1992 book A Moorland Notebook, a new tome about wayside and burial crosses, the delights of keeping walking weird and the best gennel in Sheffield or seeing himself on the big screen in Ramble On at this year’s Doc Fest and SHAFF Festivals (and we’ll have more with SHAFF founder Matt Heason at the end of this newsletter), Terry is on the front foot as ever.

As he says over a brew and a chinwag, “One thing leads to another. It’s all about discovering or rediscovering, basically, our past. There are stories to be told on the moors and about the moors and that’s what makes it fascinating. And, hopefully, a new generation can be inspired too.”

On Wayside Crosses and Burial Routes

“Me and another chap are presently putting a book together of roadside crosses around Hallamshire, Ecclesfield and Bradfield so we’ve been researching that. Years ago, there was a place called New Cross that we found on our trespass rambles. There was a cross in the middle of the moor on the maps but on private land, and I used to keep going across to try and find it. When I found it, it were a discovery.

“I saw what was a sword or a cross on the base. However, there were the remains of the shaft or the cross. These were of course regular features on the landscape at around the time of reformation – all local wayside crosses were destroyed and monasteries too – anything pope-ish.

“There was a cross on the middle of the moor – it’s barren and you can see for miles and miles, just off the Dukes Road which is a public right of way. You could see the cross and it used to draw ramblers. For years this happened and then suddenly the shaft was gone. It was gamekeepers taking the shaft down as it was attracting ramblers to their moor. And then, one day, it was gone, this would have been in around 2010.

“It was pretty obvious a gamekeeper had taken it in their little vehicle – it was far too big for a rambler to put it in their rucksack. I contacted the local authority, and the Peak District National Park, because it was a scheduled monument. It was vandalism and this shaft had been removed. They contacted the local landowner who said it was nothing to do with them – what a load of crap. Someone had vandalised it and taken it away. I’ve been up loads of times and there’s nowt there, it’s just gone. There’s a little stone that they put in its place.

“It's clearly a cross. That’s how it was, with the shaft, it’s a fair size. It’s ancient, with a name like New Cross, it has to be an old cross - going back to 1066 at least. There were stone crosses and burial crosses before 1066. This cross is on a burial route between Howden and Bradfield, so anyone who died was carried from there over Abbey Brook, New Cross, Emlyn Moor and then down into Bradfield Church. I’ve been through burial records for Bradfield Church but they only go back to the 1500s and there was a reference to people born in Howden and buried in Bradfield, and this was one of the routes.

“Trudging over the moors with a body on your back – it conjures all sorts. Now the shaft has gone and they’ve stuck a stone in top. Nobody has ever referred to this sword or cross until this book we’re putting together on wayside crosses and we’re finding all sorts of these crosses with apotropaic marks to ward off evil spirits.

“They’re at Stanage Pole and Oxstones. But why have a cross on a cross? On Big Moor you have crosses – we believe that when crosses were destroyed in the reformation, they’d use a traditional burial route but they’d put their cross instead to ward off evil spirits – they were super religious and they wanted to warn off evil spirits to protect people on the journey. Bolsterstone had them. You’ll find them on boundary stones. There’s a marker stone around Loxley – it’s nothing new, it goes way back in time. The witch marks are all over the place – there’s no end of them on the rocks around Stanage in sheltered spots; maybe some of the workers who were quarrying put them there to protect them. So that’s where we’re going with that book (about Wayside Crosses) – and one thing leads to another.”

On a new edition of A Moorland Notebook

It’s been more than 30 years since Terry published A Moorland Notebook in 1992, now, Peakrill Press is running a crowdfunding campaign for a new edition in 2025. You can find out how to support by clicking the link above.

The book is an evocative exploration of the land, its history and the long fight for access. Through rich storytelling, historical insight and personal reflection, the book uncovers struggles over land ownership, the loss of ancient rights and the campaign to reclaim the freedom to roam. The book is also a celebration of the moors’ beauty, and a call to preserve them for future generations.

“The new edition is really about capturing that particular time when I first wrote the book – things were happening and it was a personal viewpoint. In 1982, it was the 50th anniversary of that original mass trespass. It was a member of the ramblers who picked up on it – what is Sheffield doing about this? Two fellas picked up on this and organized a trespass on Moscar Moor and 100 people turned up on the day – it was a big crowd.

“On another walk honouring the Kinder trespass, we got the train to Edale and there was loud applause when we arrived – it was a special moment and from then on we decided to set up an organization called Sheffield Campaign for Access to Moorlands and we organized very many walks across the moors. We always told police what we were going to do. I was contacting landowners and we invited them to share in the walk and they always turned up with their agents and we’d have a bit of a chat and then we’d walk over the moor. This is where the Moorland Book comes in – there’s got to be more of a point than a trespass. People aren’t getting to explore all these things on the moor – stone edges, stone circles, crosses on the moor, you look on your map and you see them but you can’t visit.

“So we had the attitude of taking people with us. Let’s take people on, let’s educate them. We got on reasonably well with the landowners – sometimes we sat in their kitchens having a coffee – why he wanted to keep it private and we agreed it was a difference of opinion. We made it clear we wouldn’t go away till we saw something.

“However, in the meantime, there was a conflict on Big Moor – this elderly chap was stopped by rangers and physically taken off the moors. The Ramblers Association got involved and they employed a full-time access officer. At the time, we couldn’t bring about the political change that it needed – various Labour politicians supported it through an early members bill that got passed in 2004 – great stuff. But with the burning that happened recently that you could smell down in Hillsborough, well I fear we’re going backwards. I’m a bit disappointed at present – I’ve written emails to the Peak District and Sheffield saying we could help and contribute because we’ve got that experience – and they never replied. We had a meeting with the Hallam Labour Party at a local pub and he pulled out a 1950s OS map – it’s no bloody good that!

“We’re all older members – one of the rangers called us the Kinder Elders. With the new edition of the Moorland Book – I’m hoping we can create a groundswell of why this matters. It is important to me and many people I know.

“It becomes personal – you feel part of something successful, but there’s still a way to go. Things have changed but will they ever go far enough?”

On Keeping Walking Weird

“The flip side of all this is the inner city walks. Several walks cover urban paths and alleyways and gennels. A couple of us had a competition to come up with the best gennels and I dubbed them Weird Walks. I took my group on all these unusual gennels to Fulwood and Bents Green, looking for the best gennel. I had to concede that although I found the best gennel, the lady I competed with found more including one with a brand new sign put up on it simply saying GENNEL. There’s always been a bit of antagonism between us and people in Leeds about calling ‘em guinels – it’s a bit of fun.

“I saw your piece about the overgrown Japanese knotweed near Woodburn Road (you can read my piece about running Terry’s inner city round walk here in It’s Black Oer Bill’s Mothers). There’s a section of Broad Oaks Lane that is on an unadopted highway, the rest is adopted so that should be maintained and then you hit Japanese knotweed, I tried for ages and no one in the council would accept responsibility. So when I’m walking there I always tell the walkers to bring their secateurs. And then, one time I’m down there and there’s this damsel in distress - a woman stood at the railway bridge and she started following me – there’s summat happening here, I thought. And she said, I’ve got to get to work and I can’t get through. I hacked my way through, went back to the local authority and said I’d rescued a damsel in distress and within days they’d gone out and hacked all the vegetation and got it cleaned – cleaned it right up!”

You can support Terry Howard’s new Moorland Walk reprint by backing the Peakrill Press Crowdfunder here.

To see Terry’s Ramble On film, you can book tickets to see it at SHAFF in March and Doc/Fest in June.

And here you'll find details of his Inner City Round Walk.

Matt Heason, creator and all round good outdoor egg, on this year’s Sheffield Adventure Film Festival

What’s exciting you about this year’s film festival, Matt?

I’m looking forward to it being back at the showroom. It definitely feels like its natural home. I’m looking forward to Niall’s Petzl Quiz Jam on the Friday night. That will be a lot of fun.

What do you think is the secret of SHAFF’s longevity?

It’s secret? I think Sheffield is its secret. So many people with an appetite for the outdoors. Without a willing and hungry audience it would have fizzled out long ago.

Tell us about Sheffield’s Missing Summit?

Sheffield’s Missing Summit will be a short film about the ski village. We’re partnering with a new group this year at SHAFF who are spearheading an attempt to breathe some life back into the iconic Sheffield facility and make sure that skiing on the agenda as the place is revitalised.

To find out more, go to the festival website

Jim Ghedi on Wasteland and Sheaf & Feld
Crookes-born musician Jim Ghedi releases his new album imminently and is embarking on a short tour including Sidney & Matilda next month. A brutal departure from the instrumental guitar stylings of his collabaration with Toby Hay, the new record goes deep into the soil and roots of the city and beyond. His last solo record, In The Furrows A Common Place contained a poem, Sheaf & Feld, and Jim has now expanded this into a Valkyrie-esque song that plunders a rich topography. Not sure entirely what it’s got to do with Sheffield beyond its title referencing the city’s beginnings, but it’s probably got everything to do with Sheffield. We’re hoping to speak to Jim soon, but in the meantime, here’s the single.

Sheffield’s Missing Summit

I’ve joined a running group called Sheffield Business Runners. The idea being that by not working, and, in fact, networking, with Sheffield creatives, I’ll get more stories to bring you. It paid dividends straight off when I got talking to Pete and he told me about a bunch of OG ski village snowboarders working up at Parkwood to resurrect a skiing slope or two at Sheffield’s Country Park in The City. If titles alone can galvanise a campaign, then Sheffield’s Missing Summit will do the job - a short film about the plan set to premiere at the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival next month. Again, I’ll be speaking to the film-makers. I’ve already featured the soon-to-go-live Parkwood Springs park run and the idea that this neglected haven could soon be a sporting destination fills me with joy.

Monty Got A New Deal

As a Hillsborough based newsletter, we’ve been following the rise of Rivelin Co with interest. Chief exec Linda Bloomfield is clearly in demand in Sheffield’s under pressure charity sector, but has got plenty of tales to tell as she prepares for a conference exploring the future of the sector as funding gets squeezed. She’s also been involved in the renovation and expansion of the lovely Montgomery Theatre so she’ll be telling us about that too. Watch this space.

National Folklore Survey and the Mary Queen Of Scots story

Our inaugural newsletter was with David Clarke and he tells us that his national folklore survey, the biggest in 50 years and an indication of what the people of Sheffield truly believe, is now live. I’ve announced this 457 years and a day since Mary Queen of Scots was first handed over to jailer George Talbot for 15 years of mercurial castle hopping and bathing in white wine. Not sure if the new Castlegate park will go in for such literal detail this year, but it’s a tempting prospect.

And, finally, a thank you

Some subscribers have got in touch offering up ideas of content. As such I’m hoping to speak to the indefatigable Terry Howard on the latest edition of his Moorland Walk book soon. Here’s a guest blog I wrote for fellow friend of the earth David Bocking some time back.

“We were just out of Fountains Fell when the hallucinations started,” says an incredulous Vicky Bridges as she recounts the final leg of her astonishing Montane Spine Race across the mighty Pennine Way. “I turned to my other three runners, a couple from Scotland and a lad they’d met on the way and they were experiencing the same thing – snow gnomes, a narwhal, two calves on the horizon that was in reality just a block of ice, a snow owl.”

The Montane Spine Race has caught Sheffield thrill-seekers in its icy grip. Not only do a select few get to run it every January, with added hallucinations for its sleep-deprived runners as a bonus - but the pursuit of dot-watching (or osservazione dei punti for Italian readers), tracking the runners online as they complete an epic journey from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yeatholm in Scotland, has replaced the darts and FA Cup Third Round as the sofa sport du jour in January.

Today, I’m thrilled to bring you an interview with Vicky Bridges, who completed the first 108-mile stretch of the yomp across the Pennines last week (and was back at work climbing telegraph poles less than 48 hours later). Vicky’s 47 hours of continuous running was made even more special because it completed a five-year spiritual Spinal quest, interrupted by Covid and a stress fracture which cut last year’s effort short - “they had to pull me out - my foot was so swollen I couldn’t put my shoe on,” she says of that effort now. What’s more, the conditions this year went beyond challenging - thigh-deep snow, wintry bogs and the aforementioned hallucinations - like Aguirre Wrath of God if it had been set in Antarctica rather than the Andes.

But fear not, the Spine isn’t just for a hardy few. For Looking Up Sheffield subscriber Adam, and many like him, watching two dots grapple for ascendency on a laptop or mobile, is almost as good as the real thing.

Adam says: “There’s little to love about January, but one reason to celebrate is the return of the winter Spine Race each year.

“Every evening for a week we settle in front of the latest roundup, awed by the exploits of a largely unsung cast of heroes; Paris, Kelly, Spinks and Scott to name a few. The scenery is always breathtaking; upland England at its finest and most unforgiving, but the sheer endeavour of travelling those 268 hard, hard miles, deprived of sleep and battered by whatever the weather throws at them, is a remarkable achievement that most people, even most runners, aren’t aware of.”

This isn’t a piece about the race itself, and other chronicles are available, but of one Ougtibridge dot-watcher’s quest to push herself to the limit. I’m indebted to Andrew Hendry, whose stunning photographs appear here. And thanks to Vicky for the interview below.

If you like these Looking Up Sheffield newsletters, hit subscribe, as more than 100 of you did for my piece with folklorist David Clarke. Thank you!

“We were just out of Fountains Fell when the hallucinations started,” says an incredulous Vicky Bridges as she recounts the final leg of her astonishing Montane Spine Race across the mighty Pennine Way. “I turned to my other three runners, a couple from Scotland and a lad they’d met on the way, and they were experiencing the same thing – snow gnomes, a narwhal, two calves on the horizon that was in reality just a block of ice, a snow owl.”

Vicky, a working mum from Oughtibridge in North-west Sheffield, was coming to the end of three days and nights competing in the toughest of all UK ultras – running from Edale in the Peak District to Hawes in north Yorkshire via Hebden Bridge and Gargrave – in the most torrid conditions the race has ever seen. Knee-deep powdery snow, “like running through quicksand”, hidden plateaus and those hallucinations were complemented by nearly 50 hours of near continuous running from 8am on Saturday morning to 6.54am on Monday.

To be fair, she did sleep for an hour in Hebden Bridge and had thirty-second naps at the final stiles, but, even so. I’d probably sleep for a week after something as epic as this, but Vicky was back “up the poles” in her job as a telecoms engineer by Wednesday. Fresh from a two-hour Nannan-nap, her words, not mine, Looking Up Sheffield spoke to Vicky about the “spine bubble”, the new-found sofa sport of “dot-watching”, her five-year long battle to complete the epic run – complete with stress fractures, Covid and a heartbreaking abandoned effort last year, and what goes through your mind in the most challenging of terrains.

Congratulations, Vicky! First of all, how did you feel finishing the Spine in Hawes on Monday?

“It was really a mixed bag of emotions, I knew I was going to finish it but I had terrible shoulder pain from carrying my backpack and I was on codeine. I was elated and a bit emotional, I just wanted to get that pack off.”

I’m not surprised after 47 hours of continuous running!

“47 hours in knee deep to thigh deep snow and we were the first runners – we were at the front of the pack, breaking trail. It wasn’t easy. I’ve never hallucinated before but it’s the longest event I’ve ever done. It was funny as on the last night there were four of us and we were all getting the same hallucinations - snow gnomes just hanging around near this wall, a family of them!

Snow gnomes not withstanding, who were you running this section with?

We’d picked each other up at Gargrave – four of us decided to keep together. I’d never met them before and within hours we were all hallucinating together! I’d never seen the others before in my life. We helped each other through the night doing some navigation. We’d just pick each other up when we fell down – we’d got a decent momentum as a team and we stuck together til the end. And of course now I’ve added them all on Strava.

How do you prepare for something like this?

“I’m quite good at self-management and being outdoors on my own - taking a bivvy bag into the moors. With the Spine, you’ve got a tracker, you’ve got a headtorch and you know you’re being looked after – you do feel kind of secure but I don’t think anything can prepare you for the conditions last weekend. It’s definitely your state of mind that gets you through – 100 per cent. Fitness helps but it’s a mental game – literally.

How would you describe the race looking back now?

Knee-deep snow. Going over Edale the first day was magical, the sun was rising over Jacob’s Ladder and then it kind of went pear-shaped over Kinder and Bleaklow. There was no ice crust, you couldn’t get any purchase – every step you took from there your foot was sliding – pulling your ligaments and joints for 30 miles. Bleaklow was thigh deep snow, every step you were lifting it to your chest – it was relentless. From Hebden Bridge it was all deep snow until the back end of Cam High Road and then we descended into Hawes through knee-deep bog, slip-sliding, relentless, slabs of ice. Ice grips were essential as the roads were just blocks of ice. I’ve completely blanked the last section – it was twice as long and it went on forever. It was like someone had just stretched it into the sky forever.

It’s been a few days since you finished it - but how are you feeling now?

I don’t think I’ve quite processed it – it’s been business as usual. I was back at work by Wednesday, climbing the poles. I was exhausted but I was straight back into work. I’ve been dot-watching all week looking at these incredible journeys beyond what I did (to Kirk Yetaholm) - it’s been tiring enough just watching that!

Tell me about dot-watching!

“I think it’s just exciting – people feel part of the race being able to do that. My family have just been watching this dot over the Pennine Way.”

This has been a long-time coming for you, right?

I started ultra running about eight years ago – I’ve always ran from junior school, and longer distances like track and field, but I’ve always been an avid dot watcher. Jasmin Parris has been the inspiration for many female runners. I was just in awe and she’s made it doable for people.

I entered this race for my 40th birthday in 2020 and got a place and then lockdown happened. I deferred my place and then ended with flu two weeks before the 2023 edition so I had to pull out. I’ve had some setbacks. Covid and long Covid and then some other issues and I fractured my leg on the Spine last year – I pulled out. I didn’t know it was a stress fracture - I’d got some shin pain – I took my shoe off and my foot swelled up. I couldn’t get my shoe back off and that was that a game changer. I was on crutches for a while. While I was laid up on crutches, dot watching, I was entering this year’s race - because it fills up so quick.”

How do your family feel about you doing these events?

My family are very supportive doing these mad ventures, I’ve got more races set up – it’s just my focus, I like to be training for something. I plan all our holidays, we’ve got a camper van, if there’s an ultra during the holiday I’m doing it – I’m a better person when I’m out running – it just clears my head. My runs are getting longer and longer, but don’t take it personally I’m just clearing my head.

Anyone you’d like to thank for helping you achieve this epic feat?

My running buds – who come out on recces with me. Jack and Emma. Long mad runs at stupid o’ clock in the morning – they’re angels. And people on the spine itself - it’s such a supportive network. I slept all day last Monday and on my day off on Tuesday I just read all my messages – it was brilliant.

What would you say to fellow dot-watchers. Should they become the dot?

I’d say just do it. If I can do it anyone can - just don’t rush into it. Training is important, kit is key, planning and looking after yourself. The last part of that race was survival mode and it was really important to check your mental health.

Have you exceeded your expectations?

I wanted to finish it, but I just thought, I’ll just enjoy the day out and then I was in no pain and it was just smashing.

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Looking Up Sheffield operated as a podcast during the heady days of lockdown, shining a cultural light on topics from skateboarding to Mary Queen of Scots.

Inspired by The Sheffield Tribune, Caught By The River and It’s Black O’er Bill’s Mothers, we felt the need for some more long-form journalism about our fantastic city and people.

As we evolve, we plan to feature a Start The Week interview with a well-known Sheffield face together with weekly book, record and running recommendations brought to you by those in the know across our great independent, outdoor and cultural scenes.

Fittingly, for our first interview of the year, and just after Loz has sung himself hoarse at a Twelfth Night wassail in his local pub, we shine the spotlight on folklore. The Centre for Contemporary Legend, based at Sheffield Hallam University, has a busy 2025 lined up with the launch of a survey about what people truly believe.

In 1964, John Widdowson and Paul Smith, armed with a mountain of printed slips, set out to conduct what would become the definitive survey of English folklore and traditions for the next 60 years.

They handed the simple forms out to anyone who visited Sheffield University, where they were based. And they wanted to know the answer to one question: what do you know to be true?

Several years later, young archaeology undergraduate David Clarke stumbled upon the archive on Glossop Road. The archive was a patchwork of observances, superstitions and local legends, passed down through families and communities about Hawthorn Blossom and white devil-haunted highways.

Six decades on, the Survey of Language and Folklore is finally being updated, and we spoke to Dr Clarke about why folklore matters, and where we will find it in Sheffield.

Why is folklore important to Sheffield? And as a journalist, why are folk tales so important to you?

My grandparents brought me up on Sheffield folk tales – tunnels under the castle going all the way to the Old Queens Head and Manor Lodge. When they told me about Spring Heeled Jack, some guy dressed in a white sheet with springs in his boots that used to leap out on you at night – I was hooked. As a nipper, because I was hearing all about Spring Heeled Jack and I was into Marvel comics, this was like Spider-Man and Batman. The name Spring Heel Jack captures all sorts doesn’t it?My grandparents gave me all the stories about the underground tunnels to the castle. They’d been passed on from people who claimed to have been down them, supposedly from the ruins of the castle, under Castle Market. My grandparents were absolutely convinced these tunnels existed, and that one of them ran up to the Star building on York Street. And another one ran across the valley to Manor Castle and there was an entrance to the tunnel under the Old Queen's Head, which was my granddad's favourite boozer. So I had all these connections, bubbling away, from when I was young.

My granddad was a steelworker and you can imagine them knocking back the beer after they'd done the shift at the steelworks and coming out with all these stories. And it did strike me as odd. How on earth could that be? And years later, I heard about the Megatron – the name hooks you in just like Spring Heeled Jack. Sheaf Storm drain doesn't have quite the same ring.

I think the Megatron is the basis of the legend of the underground tunnels. I think people knew that it was there, and that it had been covered up. And somehow that's become tangled up with the idea about there being an underground tunnel because that's effectively what it is.

There was a pre-existing tunnel legend. I think Joseph Hunter mentions it in 1823 about a tunnel between the castle and the Manor Lodge, but every castle in the entire of the UK, as far as I know, has got a similar legend; and it's entirely probable that there was some kind of escape tunnel from Sheffield Castle, the original Sheffield Castle, because every large castle in England certainly had what was known as a sally port, which was used if the castle was under siege and the people inside needed to get out secretly. They'd go down a short tunnel to take them out of wherever the enemy was besieging them. So, I am absolutely confident if they dig the castle in the right place, they'll find the sally port because Sheffield Castle was the third largest in the country at one time.

How excited are you about the castle redevelopment?

I'm on the committee of Friends of Sheffield Castle. and the Sheffield Heritage Board, representing intangible cultural heritage. So I'm got several hats on but what they've actually discovered on site is amazing. And I don't think there's any doubt now because one of the other legends about the castle is did it originate in Norman times when the first Lords of the Manor arrived and got rid of the Saxons.

There's a mention in the Doomsday Book of there being some kind of saxon hall, somewhere in Sheffield. And this was the hall of Waltheof, the Saxon Lord of Sheffield who got beheaded by William the Conqueror. And as you know, there was a famous harrowing of the North where he sent his soldiers and burned everything to the ground in this area, right up to York. So where was the hall of Waltheof?

There is a record that during the Barons' War, I think that's in the 13th century, this guy called Evil, Lord Evil, came through the city and burned Sheffield to the ground, including the castle.

But the new excavations have found evidence that there was something there before the Norman castle. I don't know exactly what, and it's not been fully dated, but they're quite confident now that there was something there. Maybe even back to Roman times. If you think about it, it was right on the confluence between the Don and the Sheaf. You've got Lady's Bridge. It's a natural place where the Roman soldiers from Templeborough would have crossed the rivers to get out to Manchester. It’s amazing stuff. And they found this well, this huge motte and bailey that the castle sat on and one of the first things they found during the excavation is this massive sort of 30-odd-foot well that just drops into water. So what on earth is at the bottom of that? So I'm just stunned. But I knew they would find interesting stuff once they started excavating.

This is where Mary Queen of Scots would have been led into the castle back in the 1560s. In terms of a draw for tourists to Sheffield, if the people involved in this have got a bit of vision like the makers of Jorvik had 30 years ago, it could be amazing for the city. At Jorvik, as much as I love it, there's nothing there - they've created a fantastic experience where you can get in and go back in time to Viking period and experience the smells.

But Sheffield could do far better than that. All they've got to do is put some glass over it, let people walk over the drawbridge in medieval garb or whatever. I mean, come on! So much could be done. But it needs money; it needs vision; and it needs commitment to it.

Tell us about the Centre for Contemporary Legend. How did that start?

It was a group of like-minded people, like-minded academics, coming together and saying, 'Oh, you know we ought to set up a research group.' But we've got an actual office now, a physical office at Sheffield Hallam Uni, for the project. We've got a new postdoctoral research associate starting in January who's going to be working with me for two years on the survey, Sophie Parkes-Nield.

We’ve got Diane Rodgers, also of Sheffield Hallam, Andrew Robinson, Ceri Houlbrook and Owen Davies who founded the MA Folklore Studies course at Hertfordshire University, together with US sociology professor Christopher Bader.

So we will be surveying a sample of I think about 3, 000 people, and we can definitely say it will shine a light on modern folklore because this will be a gold standard survey, it won’t just be an anecdote here or an anecdote there. It's great to have 10,000 collecting slips with bits of information about people's ghost stories and sayings and dialect. But at the moment, those survey slips are just tied up with string sitting in a basement at University of Sheffield. I want something that will give us robust data.

So what tales are worth celebrating in Sheffield - what would you put on a folkloric walking tour?

Well, the first thing you see when you come out of the station is the rocket-shaped monument, the Cholera Monument. The Cholera Monument ground is Spring Heeled Jack's haunt, so that would be top of my list. If you go up there, you know, there's lots to see, and there are some amazing metal sculptures. One of which actually shows Spring Heeled Jack leaping over rooftops.

Then head uphill on City Road to Manor Castle or Manor Lodge, and obviously you've got all the legends there. There's the Manor Lodge pub which has a White Lady ghost, and you've got the tunnel that's supposed to run from there under the Cholera monument to the Old Queen's Head.

The Megatron would be top of my list. I know you can't just go, well you can go down it, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's better to go on a guided tour with the Sheaf and Porter Trust, and they're doing them very frequently.

If you go in the other direction into the city centre, my first port of call, after you've had a pint in the old Queen's Head, which has got numerous ghosts and an amazing set of carvings; one that's supposed to be Mary Queen of Scots, another that's supposed to be Queen Elizabeth, her jailer, another that's supposed to be Lord Shrewsbury, another Lord of the Manor who had to keep Mary Queen of Scots in prison for 14 years. And she nearly bankrupted him because she constantly wanted to have baths in white wine, and his wife, Bess of Hardwick, got more and more jealous, thinking he was having an affair with Mary Queen of Scots.

If you then head up into the city centre, you have got to go to the Cathedral, which has got numerous stories and legends, but the most amazing sight of all, if you go into the oldest part of the Cathedral, and look into the roof of the Lady’s Chapel, which is 15th century, and you will see an amazing suite of carvings, all of which are folkloric, including at least six green men, and what we could conservatively call a medieval acrobat. And then there’s the missing crypt coffins. There's a crypt under the cathedral where we know all the key Sheffield lords were buried - but there’s only two coffins. So the sixth Earl and the fourth Earl, probably the two most famous ones, are missing. Where are they!?

Then you should finally visit Bishop's House in Meersbrook. It's got lots of stories and there are what are known as ritual marks, marion marks that people in the Tudor times used to cut into fireplaces and entrances to keep away evil spirits.

You worked as a journalist at the Sheffield Star. What tales did you unearth there?

I was working for a little free sheet called the Stocksbridge Trader when the whole thing about the Stocksbridge bypass kicked off. It was Bob Westerdale who tipped me off through his contacts at South Yorkshire Police. Do you know the bypass was officially opened on Friday the 13th 1988? Bodes well, doesn’t it! It was being built to take the traffic away from Stocksbridge town centre and the whole thing was just a building site with a massive pile of muck and stone on either side with the Pearoyd Bridge sitting there in mid-air with nothing connected to it.

One of the contractors there heard the sounds of children at night when there were no children; another had seen a ring of children dancing around a pylon. They'd gone out in this Land Rover with the lights shining on the bridge and they'd seen this cowled figure standing on the bridge and they were so terrified they drove down into Stocksbridge, hammered on the door of the vicarage and they got the vicar out : “can you come and exorcise it?” And the vicar refused!

So they got the police in, and these two coppers drove up there, sat in the car one night, in the freezing cold, pitch black. Just taking the piss out of it, having a fag, and all the rest of it. And then suddenly there were all these bangs on the back of the patrol car, and then this figure appears in front of the car.

And they reported this to South Yorkshire Police, which is how Bob started getting the story. Obviously, I was on site almost immediately, with my massive ghettoblaster recording the story from these two coppers. And I was out on vigil trying to see this thing myself. Absolutely nothing, I just got absolutely frozen solid. But then loads of other people came out of the woodwork saying they'd seen weird stuff and this phantom monk and all the rest of it. Something weird and inexplicable.

I’m normally a debunker of these things, but I do think there are things that go on that we're never going to know what they are, and I'm quite happy as a folklorist to leave it like that. I don't have any pressing need to find whether something is true or false, because a lot of these things are experiences that people have.

We've got to talk about Robin Hood, haven't we?

I remember watching the first episode of the 1980s TV series and it's all set in Loxley. And it's all about, you know, how the Normans attacked, attacked and killed all the Saxon Lords; and the young Robin was sort of saved and hidden away and went on to become this rebel fighting against the hated Normans. And when I saw Loxley on screen, I just thought, Loxley? What, in Sheffield?

And so I started digging into it at that point. And I came to realize that there's an equally long tradition that goes way back. It's even in the guy who did the survey for the castle. In 1634, for the Lord of the Manor, he went out to Loxley or what was then Loxley; and he records, you know, the remains of the cottage where Robin Hood was born. And there's another reference to it in the Bodleian Library as well about somebody called Robert Loxley having killed his father and then fled into the woods where he met Little John. And as you know, you've got the whole Little John legend at Hathersage, a few miles away, across the wood.

Why is it such a big deal that he could have been born in what is today modern-day Sheffield, outlawed, and then spent the rest of his time ranging from West Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottingham because that's what outlaws do - they're on the move all the time, so why does he have to belong to Nottingham? And people who come to me and say, 'Oh, you're trying to steal Robin Hood’ but I just laugh and say, 'Well, you tell me where Loxley is then'.

He was born in Sheffield. His mate lived in and died there, the villain lived in Nottingham and, he died in Kirklees in West Yorkshire, so he's a true Englishman, a true English hero, which we should all be celebrating. And I don't see why Nottingham, Sheffield, Hathersage and Kirklees can't all work together; to set up a Robin Hood trail, which is what I’d love to do.

You’ve gone from being a journalist to finding this incredible career investigating UFOs, folklore and its place in contemporary Sheffield - what advice would you give to a young writer today?

I remember a colleague from the Sheffield Star saying the way to make it in journalism is to become an expert on something, you know? If you're in the police, you start as a generalist and then after 18 months on the beat, you become a traffic officer. It's the same for journalism, you need to learn how to write, you need to learn how to tell stories. But then you become a specialist, become an expert, become respected, and then you will never be out of work.

And those words have stuck with me, and it's absolutely true.

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