Artefacts from Redcar Steelworks can teach us valuable lessons of the past - Yorkshire Post Letters

The news that artefacts from the now sadly closed Redcar steelworks are to be saved (‘How the mighty have fallen’, The Yorkshire Post, August 10) is most welcome.

The history and associated lessons that reflecting on this history can teach us, both as individuals and as a society, are numerous.

The lessons we can learn from the challenges our ancestors faced in getting work, the battles they fought to access knowledge, better living conditions and education are ones we should all take notice of.

Here in Sheffield, for example, we have a huge shopping mall at Meadowhall which has been a Sheffield landmark for approaching 35 years.

The area now covered by the shopping centre and surrounding infrastructure was once home to Hadfields steelworks, one of the largest such works in Europe at the time.

A picture shows not only the former East Hecla works of Hadfields but also the Tinsley West junction signal box on the disused rail line which previously allowed direct journeys from Tinsley and Barnsley to Rotherham and Doncaster, a journey which now required a change at Meadowhall.

As the Canadian author and philosopher Matshona Dhilwayo said - "It is in the roots, not the branches, that a tree’s greatest strength lies."