research 7

I wanted to visit the places important in my mums life over Christmas but due to family illness i wasn't able to so I did some research on the internet to get some images and information to work from. My plan is to have pages showing times throughout her life so I needed to learn more about the plaes them selves and what they were like at the specific times.

I found some images of the steel mills in Sheffield where my grandad worked, he worked for a few companys but the one he worked for for a long time was Balfour Darwin. The work was extremely hard, he used to work as a brick layer rebuilding furnaces during the night when it was cool enough to get the work done. At that time it being cool enough meant around 35 degrees. i want to show how hard my grandad worked to provide for his family. oming form a very poor background my grandad made the most of everything he had, he grew his own vegetables, brewed his own beer and would buy a whole pig instead of buying cuts of meat and use every part of the animal. Sunday lunch was always a big deal at my grandparents house, I used to love going there and picking vegetables to have for dinner.

After the first world was Sheffield's industries entered a recession and many people were unemployed. At this time Sheffield began a large scale slum clearance as the council housing started to be built in the city. My grandad lived in the slums and was the youngest of at least 10 brothers. My mum tried to trce her family history in the years before she died but struggled to find information. My grandads parents were Irish immigrants who came over to England to work. They lived in the slums and shared a house with another Irish family so were living in incredibly cramped conditions. This explains why when my grandma and grandad were moved in to council house in 1953 they thought it was amazing. They had an indoor toilet and a garden, council housing was viewed very positively at the time.