Memorial urged at wartime bomb site

Local author Neil Anderson said the biggest single loss of life in the city during the war took place at the seven-storey Marples Hotel, in Fitzalan Square, on December 12, 1940.

It is thought that at least 70 people lost their lives when the building suffered a direct hit at 11.44pm that night. Some of the bodies of those trapped inside were never recovered.

Mr Anderson said: "I think it's terrible that there is no permanent memorial to the people that died in the Marples Hotel that night.

"The two nights of the Sheffield Blitz in December 1940 killed or injured over 2,000 people and made nearly a tenth of the city's population homeless.

"I truly believe there should be far more done to mark the incredible sacrifices Sheffield people made during the dark days of the Second World War."

Mr Anderson is planning to raise a petition which will demand a permanent memorial for those killed in the Blitz. It will be delivered to Sheffield Town Hall in the New Year.

The petition will be available every weekend starting this Saturday at the Sheffield's Date With Christmas kiosk in The Moor shopping area.

Mr Anderson's call coincides with a Sheffield Blitz event on Sunday, which has been organised by staff on The Moor, which was itself virtually flattened during the German bombers' onslaught.

The free event will include actors and re-enactments, wartime vehicles and memorabilia, a tea dance and a performance by a George Formby impersonator.

Everyone who takes part in the activities will be issued with a free Second World War identity card and will be able to sample wartime food and see a fire engine that was used in Sheffield just after the war.