Valuable life lessons for youngsters

THE article by Chris Bond, “From skylark to steelworks” (Yorkshire Post, May 21), took me back to my childhood days in Sheffield.

When I was a small child in the 1930s, I always played alone. Our house, an old cottage, was situated at the foot of Wincobank Hill, Grimesthorpe, Sheffield. Some 2,000 years ago the hill was a Celtic fort, though of course I had no knowledge of this at the time when I lived there. All I knew was that the hill was a magical place for me. I never saw anyone else up there and it felt as though the place belonged to me. Between the ages of five and seven years I was omnipotent – I was completely in charge of the world around me!

Sometimes I would roll around in the long grass and listen to the sounds made by the skylarks hovering above, the breeze blowing through the grass and stamps and steam hammers in factories down below in Brightside.

Being alone there was no one to bully me, no one to make me jealous and no competition to make me feel superior or inferior. Unlike children of today who are cooped up at home or in a nursery in an artificial world of TV, computers and organised activities, I was growing up with a clear self-image of what and who I was – without any comparisons to other children.

When I was nine or 10, I started wanting to explore the world beyond my home environment and quickly discovered places like Wyming Brook, Grindleford, Stanage Edge, Carl Wark (another Celtic fort) and Kinder Scout. All the time, when I wandered around these places, I was aware of the sounds made by the wind, the brooks, the birds and even the sounds made by my boots as I walked on rocks, heather, bracken, peat and squelchy bogs.

When I started teaching in 1951 at Arbourthorne North Junior School, Sheffield, one of the first things I did with my 10-year-old children was take them down to play on Wincobank Hill. Then during the rest of the year I took them to most of the other places in and around Sheffield that I had explored as a child. I wanted them to experience the same that I had.

Three years ago I met one of these ex-pupils (he’s 72 now!) and he told me that the only thing he remembered about his 11 years at school were the times when I took him out.

And incidentally, the outings afforded them real life experiences to read, write and talk about!

What would our Ofsted inspectors make of what I did to educate my pupils?

Question of responsibility

From: AW Clarke, Wold Croft, Sutton on Derwent, York.

I AM sure I cannot be the only person to ask why, quite frequently, we read of yet another benefits fraud which has been allowed to continue for years. Can anyone explain how this can happen without any questions being asked of those in receipt of such huge sums?

The latest of these cases is that of the mother of several children, five of whom she claimed were disabled. I note that mother has now been jailed so one assumes that there will be endless social workers and other welfare people put in place to care for these, evidently perfectly healthy, children. Why do we never hear of anyone taking responsibility for these huge errors? I am quite certain that if someone in the private sector had allowed more than £44,000 a year to be taken from their company for eight consecutive years, heads would roll.

From: Arthur Quarmby, Underhill, Holme, Holmfirth.

AMANDA Webber, the mother of eight who defrauded the benefits system of £353,000 over a period of 12 years (Yorkshire Post, May 25), at a rate of up to £10,000 a month, is to be sent to prison for four years.

How much more appropriate it would be if she were to be employed by the benefits office in order to eradicate fraud (“set a thief to catch a thief”, it used to be said), and if those incompetent enough to have awarded her this immense amount of public money were themselves to be disiplined instead.

Dambusters at first hand

From: Vic Wilson, Hawksley Rise, Sheffield.

I ACTUALLY watched 617 Squadron practising for the raid using the Dam Flask at Bradfield on the outskirts of Sheffield. I was a member of 371 Squadron Air Training Corps and we were on a weekend camp at High Bradfield.

The Lancasters came low over our heads, starting their dives down to the start of the dam, then making their low level runs just above the water towards the dam wall. They did this hour after hour, doing circuit after circuit, which of course greatly excited us young RAF-mad cadets.

We could easily see the crews of the planes in their posts with us lads waving like mad, us not knowing of course what it was all about, nor realising that more than 50 of those men would be killed on the raid they were practising for.

After the raid measures were taken to protect Dam Flask from the Germans doing the same to us, for if they had succeeded the Sheffield steel industry would have been devastated.

A high steel tower was erected at each side of the dam with a steel cable going from each and hanging down all the way across were cables with concrete weights on the end of each.

This formed a steel curtain which would stop any runs similar tuns to 617 being made. These measures were kept in place until the war was over.