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Landscapes in Sound


Have been following up something from earlier today about the sounds of Sheffield....

Steel, Peach and Tozers (or Steelos) as everyone called it, was the place where my dad started work in the mid 1950s...

He was a draughtsman before moving into engineering role, and moved to a number of other mills, including Hatfields (now Meadowhall) before finishing at Aldwarke Works, Parkgate almost 50 years later...

I remember doing a photography project on the area between Rotherham and Sheffield and its dereliction in the late 1980s, after the earlier industrial development, with its attendant environmental implications.

Came across an album called THE SONG OF STEEL. Listen to the album on SPOTIFY if you have access to this...

One of the things that also features on the disc is the mention of "beer notes". My dad used to be one of the people who handed out beer notes which could be exchanged at the Temple pub just outside the foundry (which is now a museum called Magna, and also a training centre where I've presented several times...)

BBC Radio Ballads is a sound portrait, complete with songs from artists including the wonderful timbre of Kate Rusby.
There are loads of interviews with people who remember what life was like back then.

This is a wonderful sound portait of a place, and a lost industrial landscape....

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