September 29, 2008
Sheffield
Most famous for its cutlery, Sheffield is known as the Steel City. Most of the works were situated in the Don Valley, east of the city centre towards Rotherham and Doncaster. As around Middlesbrough, large-scale closures took place in the 1980s. [viz. The film, set in Sheffield, The Full Monty] A plant still operates in Tinsley by the M1 and a reduced size special steels works in Stocksbridge, part way up the Pennines, at the other end of the Don valley. Otherwise, some small scale specialists are still in business; in high quality scalpels for example.
Sheffield has done a good job of reinventing itself, as a conference centre and sports venue. They got the ball rolling, so to speak, when they hosted the World Student Games in 1991. The two universities, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam have a total student population of around 40,000. Concomitant research facilities in science and medicine bring in more again to the local economy.
Joe Cocker, Jarvis Cocker, the Arctic Monkeys, Richard Hawley, the Human League, Heaven 17 and Dave Berry are all Sheffielders. All round there's a lively music scene. A Le Corbusier on Le Corbusier style make-over of the Park Hill flats is currently taking place, whether the locals will come up with a new nickname [was Alcatraz] is open to question. My impression is that Sheffielders are noticeably friendly, more so than we rather more curmudgeonly Teessiders. This spirit of friendship is less apparent, I'm told, whenever the city's two soccer teams, United and Wednesday are pitted against each other.
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Patrick's birthday was tomorrow. He had a class at 4pm today. After breakfast we walked downtown, where I re-supplied him with football boots [soccer shoes] and a pair of goal-keeping gloves. He left for his lesson and I went shopping for dinner for six. I cooked pork chops with cider, mustard and onion sauce and mashed potatoes. ' Best mashed potatoes, I ever had,' said Anne. The girl's too kind.
Later, Pat, Adam, Jason and I went for a couple of beers in a very quiet local pub. They had a notion to start a Sunday League football team and thought the landlord of this pub might help them out. Nothing came of it in the end. Then, back to the Decathlon Thermarest for another decent night' s sleep.
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