Open Writing

Joseph Littlewood’s chest was giving him hell. The hacking cough seemed to be ripping him apart. ‘Grinder’s chest’ the doctors called it. Not that Joe had seen a doctor recently, sixpence a visit was unthinkable. Only his wife Mary was keeping him sane. After the heartbreaking flood, it had taken the two of them three months, to clean up the house and try to replace everything they’d lost. As it was, Joe’s seven children had only the clothes they stood up in, hand me downs and coarse trousers and skirts, Mary had sewn.

The appalling smells in the house weren’t helping Joe's cough. There was a repugnant reek of damp and mould as walls and wood slowly dried out. Add, the stench of urine and bucketed slops. With only one outside tap and scarce hot water, unwashed bodies and grimy clothes added to the misery of their condition.

“Mary – I’m going across t’ foundry. See if they’ve heard any more about t’claims. Jim’s coming an’ all. I’ll see if I can scrounge a few spuds. Sha’nt be long love. Bit of air ‘ll do me chest good.”

Number 1 Alma Street, by Kelham Island wasn’t the only house hit. James and Kitty Yates next door thought their place was going to be washed away entirely. The situation at number 3 was even more desperate. Lost furniture and basic possessions still hadn’t been replaced. Sleeping was on sacking beds on floors still damp from the flood water and boxes and broken crates made do as chairs and tables. The biggest problem, was having enough to eat. Some days only Jim had food. Kitty insisted on this so that he could work. Without work at the foundry, only the five-storey workhouse, looming over the road, came between them and starvation.

With faces the colour of the now benign river water, Jim and Kitty’s three girls, were heavy-eyed and underweight. Jim was desperate and swore that he would find a way to change things.
The fact that they were alive and 250 poor souls had died on that dreadful night three months ago, was no longer a comfort.

At exactly quarter to midnight on Friday March 11th, 1864, six hundred and fifty million gallons of water tore through a breach in the Dale Dyke dam and screamed and smashed its way down the Loxley Valley, on to the river Don and finally to Lady’s Bridge in the centre of Sheffield. As the torrent tore down the narrowing valley, two hundred died in their beds. In factories down the valley, strong men, on night shift, drowned at their machines, before they could move. Albert and Florrie Eaton, Joe’s friends on Kelham, died in a frantic attempt to save the pig they had fattened to get them through the winter, the fronts of their houses first demolished then washed into the torrent. A miracle few escaped.

Joe banged on Jim’s window and stared over the road at the dray being pulled out of Crowley's by two, heavy, shire horses, brown coats and brasses gleaming. The driver was struggling to get his charges cleanly through the gates, the dray bottoming on its springs under the weight of three huge castings.

“Hiya Joe,'' the driver yelled, “Heard owt abaht yer claim yet?''

“No I haven’t Ted. Me and Jim's going into town to see if they’ve owt to tell us at Town Hall. We’ll let ye know. See yer.”

The dray clattered slowly over the bridge and disappeared, heading for Carbrook.

“Jim, Jim! Joe’s ere, he’s just banged ont’ winder,” Kitty said.

“See yer later Kitty. Ahdo Joe. Come on, lets gerrit o’er we.”

It was a thirty-minute walk into Sheffield, over the fields and the two friends, neighbours and work-mates set off briskly down Alma Street, past 'The Fat Cat' pub. Both were in working clobber; cloth caps, white scarves, waistcoats and rough jackets. Joe was thirty-six, Jim thirty-three. They looked at least fifty.

Jim peered at the windows of the pub reflecting the factory buildings and smoking chimneys opposite.

“If it’s good news Joe we’ll have a couple in theer later - to celebrate like.”

The iron foundry where Joe and Jim worked had been badly hit by the flood with serious damage to buildings and plant. John Crowley and Co., Kelham Works iron foundry, was built in 1829 on a small island in the River Don – Kelham Island. The island was originally formed to provide a millrace or goit, to serve a silk mill, later a cotton mill, powered by the Kelham wheel. The Mill was now a multi storey Workhouse and the inmates had been saved from drowning by being moved to the higher floors.

The Company’s claim in 1854, No 4823, was for compensation from the Sheffield Water Company and read –

‘Damages due by the Inundation of the Kelham Iron Works in the Parish of Sheffield in the County of York in the occupation of the said John Crowley & Company £1685.17.4½’

The claim had been met in full.

Joe's claim NO 458, similarly couched, was for £31-10s and covered, loss of furniture and household Effects, all washed away or destroyed, clothes for self, wife and children at £2 each, together with Loss of Wages, by the stoppage of Crowley’s Kelham Works, for self and two boys, the latter item to a value of £3-10s.
Grand Total £31 –10s.

The two men made good headway along the well-used paths cutting through Jenkinson’s cornfields. The sunlit spire of Sheffield Cathedral, high on the horizon, pointed the way. It began to rain and Joe shuddered as the warming sun disappeared. Fast walking and the anxiety of their errand were making the pains in his chest worse.

“ Ahl av ter stop Jim. Mi chests real bad.” Joe stopped and bent double trying to find relief.

“Tha don’t look sa good Joe I av to say”. Jim was worried. “Sit down ere for a bit lad – it’s dry dahn ere.”

Exhausted by the racking cough, Joe crawled gratefully into the gap in the hedge out of the rain, his face contorted with pain.

“Look Joe, ahl run rest ot way to get news for us both. Ah can be back ere in half an hour. You rest lad. You’ll be alreight ere. Ah waint be long.”

He turned and was up the path before Joe had time to protest. The reality was, Joe was seriously ill.

When Jim got back over an hour later Joe hadn’t moved. The terrible coughing had stopped and his eyes were closed. At the age of thirty-six, Joe Littlewood was dead.

Epilogue

Joes claim was refused, as were all the many hundreds of claims for domestic loss.

Mary and the seven children only just managed to avoid being sent to the dreaded Workhouse and were meagrely provided for by a Parish fund for the poor. The children were ‘apprenticed’ from the age of seven to relieve strain on the funds. They rarely saw their mother after that and their fate depended on the whims of the particular master.

Jim lived another fourteen years and died at the mature age of forty-seven.

Most of the story is centred on real events and circumstances. Records exist for all the claims. The workers claims were in the main refused, leading to dreadful long-term hardship. Mary, Jim and Joe were from my imagination.