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In attempting to gauge the circumstances in which my father was brought up I have little more than a series of anecdotes on which to base the narrative. Dad was born on a farm, Storrs Grange, in the southern part of the parish of Bradfield. As the youngest member of the family had no recollection of either set of grandparents who presumably died before his birth. There is a story that the will of his paternal grandfather, Eli Bramall, was contested by his aunt Alberta, resulting in most of the family’s estate being consumed by lawyer’s fees. Certainly, his father Oscar had very little money when he started farming. This was of some consequence because Oscar fell in love with a Clara Worrall, the youngest child of a family living nearby at Upper House, Ughill. Clara had lost her father who was killed in a hunting accident when she was still young. Her mother intended that she should marry a chemist from South Wales who was presumably a far better ‘match’ than a poor farmer like Oscar. Clara and Oscar had other ideas. In the best traditions of a Bronte novel, the young lovers agreed to delay marrying for a year, during which time they undertook not to see one another. If, at the conclusion of the year, they felt the same about one another, the marriage would be ‘on’, despite the objections of Clara’s mother. There is a wonderful twist to this story for, on every day of that year, Oscar would ride several miles over the moors until he could make out the chimneys of his sweetheart’s house, whereupon he would turn back without seeing her, in order to remain true to his agreement. Needless to say, after the passage of that year, Oscar and Clara did feel the same way about each other and, again in a highly romantic style, they decided to elope. Defying the conventions even of elopement, they were married, not at Gretna Green but in the parish of Beckwithshaw, just outside Harrogate, having lived in the parsonage for the required three weeks to fulfil residence requirements.   Clara, being over the age of 18, did not have to cross the Scottish border to Gretna Green in order marry without the permission of her parent.

 

 Haymaking

 

With very little money, life for the newly-weds was hard. Clara had to learn how to ‘keep house’ as best she could: it would seem that her mother had not prepared her for the role, probably because she expected Clara to rely for domestic arrangements on servants provided by the South Wales chemist. Certainly, Clara’s first experiments in bread-making left much to be desired! In the event, Clara proved to be an efficient and prudent farmer’s wife: again there is a story that, unbeknown to her husband, she saved sufficient money out of her weekly allowance to be able to give him a cow costing 5 sovereigns as a present. More poignantly, there is also a tale that, one Christmas Eve, Oscar and Clara were embarrassed by a visit from carol singers [these may well have been singers of the traditional ‘Sheffield carols’ about which I have also written]. They gave the carollers all they had – apparently five shillings – and then shut the farm gate after they left for fear that other carollers might come calling.

 

Despite this modest beginning, Oscar and Clara saw the extent of their fortunes and the size of their family gradually increase. Edmund, their eldest child, was born at Lang House Farm in Worrall after which they moved to Storrs Grange. It was there that Jean, Myrtle and Douglas entered the world. Finally, when dad was about 7 or 8 years old, they moved to Manor Oaks Farm which was part of the Duke of Norfolk’s estate on the very edge of Sheffield. Manor Oaks must have been a wonderful place in its prime. I remember seeing a picture [unfortunately now lost] with the entire family, plus two maids(!) standing proudly before a large doubled-gabled farmhouse set in an extensive garden. Manor Oaks derived its name from the avenue of oak trees which once linked it to Sheffield Manor, one of the residences of the Earls of Shrewsbury and for a short period a place of incarceration of Mary Queen of Scots. The Manor, apart from its Turret House, had been demolished some two centuries earlier, but the Dukes of Norfolk (successors to the Shrewsburys) still maintained an interest in the estate. Strangely my mother’s family also had a connection with Sheffield’s Norfolk estate. Her maternal grandfather, Charles Whittle, was head gardener of Norfolk Park and dad remembered scrumping for apples in his kitchen garden and being chased off by an old man with a white beard – undoubtedly this must have been Grandpa Charles.

 Steam-driven threshing machine

 

For a time in the years leading up to, and during, the First World War, Oscar Bramall must have enjoyed considerable prosperity. The farm was chiefly given over to dairying, providing milk to a rapidly growing urban population literally on its doorstep. In those days propulsive power on the farm was provided by horses rather than tractors, and it was one of Oscar’s particular pleasures to breed his own team of Shire horses for ploughing and haulage. These horses, all of whom bore the prefix ‘Manor Oaks’ (e.g. Manor Oaks Beauty) were regularly entered at the local Country Shows where, according to family legend, they enjoyed great success. Describing this time almost a century ago, it is difficult to comprehend what life before the internal combustion engine must have been like. Dad helped on the farm from an early age and as an adolescent he remembered driving

cattle along what are now busy Sheffield roads like Abbey Lane. There were also occasions when he went further afield, for example to Bakewell market from which he recalled riding home (a distance of some 13 miles) on a newly purchased horse - and having to stop overnight at the Duke of Devonshire’s stables at Pilsley when that same horse fell ill. There were other, more sombre times: for instance taking cartloads of straw to fill the mattresses at the Fir Vale Work House, now the site of the Northern General Hospital. Devoted though he was to his Shires, dad’s father was sufficiently forward thinking to realise the potential of the motor car. Again it was the family’s boast that Oscar Bramall purchased his first car even before the local doctor. During the First World War, Manor Oaks Farm had a certain strategic importance, situated as it was on a hill near the centre of Sheffield. An anti-aircraft battery was established in one of their fields and the battery’s commander was billeted in their home. Aerial warfare was still in its infancy at the time so the battery only faced one major challenge: a Zeppelin raid in 1916. The story is that on the night of the raid, the battery’s officers were all attending a function at the Cutler’s Hall in Sheffield so there was no-one to authorise the firing of the guns and consequently no shots were fired. I emphasise that this is merely family folklore but it has a ring of truth about it.

 One of the Bramall's Shire horses

 

After the First World War, the family fortunes declined with the onset of the agricultural depression. Dad remembered occasions when he and his father returned home from market without making a sale; all their efforts in raising livestock and growing crops had produced precisely nothing by way of return. It must have been particularly demoralising for dad as his brother and two sisters took their opportunities to leave home to make their way in the world. Edmund went into the agricultural supply business whilst Jean and Myrtle both married local businessmen [their spouses were, respectively, Charles Ward, the son of the tenant of neighbouring Windy House Farm and the later owner of a firm dealing in hay and straw, and Alan Hutchinson who eventually set up his own company selling tool steel]. Dad remained at home, unmarried and working for his father. It took a combination of major economic and political developments to change dad’s circumstances. The first two changes were an upturn in industrial activity, combined with a determination on the part of Sheffield City Council to improve the standard of rented housing in the city. The upshot was a decision to build a huge council estate on the land of Sheffield Manor, including Manor Oaks Farm. If my family had been the owners of the farm rather than merely tenants, we would all have become extremely wealthy by this acquisition. As it was, the chief beneficiary was the Duke of Norfolk: Oscar Bramall had no option other than to sell off his equipment and stock and move elsewhere to retire [thankfully we do still possess the handbill of the farm sale dated March 25^th 1938]. Oscar’s choice of a new home was a detached house, which he named ‘Manor Oaks’ in the then newly built Sheffield suburb of Beauchief. Significantly, dad never took me to visit his old home. I gather that, after he and his parents left Manor Oaks, the farmhouse was converted into a Working Men’s Club, a change which the family found profoundly distressing. When my son Jonathan and I located the old farmhouse a few years ago, it had slipped even further in status to become a site for the sale of scrap car parts. I can understand dad’s reluctance to return.

 

 The Family

 

 Oscar lived on for another five years in suburban retirement. During his time at the second ‘Manor Oaks’ in Beauchief, he was known as an active old gentleman who frequently took his Old English sheepdog for walks along the lanes near Beauchief Abbey. Oscar died on 30^th March, 1943 and is buried in the family grave in Bradfield churchyard. Clara’s death followed some four years later. Their youngest son Douglas, my father, was laid to rest in that same grave when he died on 17^th July, 1991. After my father’s interment, the old gravestone was so badly damaged that I had to arrange for a new one to be erected, On that new stone, above the names of the deceased, I commissioned the carving of a Shire horse. I know Oscar would have approved.

Copyright O Phil Bramall, 2006