Pitsmoor Pipers

Story: Francis Feeley

Pitsmoor residents, Diz and Francis Feeley of Rock Street, are members of the City of Sheffield Pipe Band – Diz is a drummer and Francis is a piper. In May, the band visited the Sheffield Memorial Park in northern France, which commemorates the fate of the Sheffield “Pals” Battalion in the First World War.

The 30 pipers and drummers performed a ceremony of remembrance on the spot where 513 young men of Sheffield were killed within 10 minutes at 7.30am on the 1st of July in 1916. More were wounded and the rest were sent to other parts of the battlefield to fall later in the war.

Sheffield “Pals”

The City of Sheffield Pipe Band returned to their Woodhouse base on Tuesday evening 27th May 2008 from an emotional commemoration of the Sheffield “Pals” Battalion in that small part of France that is the Sheffield Memorial Park. Included in that band and supported by the Burngreave small grants fund were Diz and Francis Feeley of Rock Street, Pitsmoor.

Diz is a drummer in the band and Francis is a piper.

Met by the Mayor of Serre, and hosted by the farmer on whose land it is preserved, the 30 pipers and drummers performed a ceremony of remembrance on the spot where 513 young men of Sheffield were killed within 10 minutes at 7.30 am on the 1st of July in 1916. More were wounded and the rest were sent to other parts of the battlefield to fall later in the war. The Sheffield “Pals” were formed on the 10th of September 1914. Inside 2 days, 1,000 men signed up to train in camps at Totley – many to die in the 4 years following.

The Band is 100 years old this year and as the City of Sheffield Band we chose to mark our centenary with a truly unique tribute to the City’s history. The trip was very emotional for all of us. Members of the band were openly crying in the memorial park as they played a set of the popular songs that those boys would have sung in that very place on the eve of their final attack.

Flanders field

But the boys from Sheffield were not alone in the conflict. A visit to the Flanders Field Museum showed that many of the cultural groups now resident in Burngreave were also drawn into the conflict, including African, Muslin, Caribbean and Indian troops.

The band, whose members range from 80 years of age to a band boy of just 8, also played at the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium and at the Plugstreet Memorial where more fallen of the Sheffield “Pals” are commemorated.

We were privileged the evening after our playing in the Last Post ceremony to witness the annual Sikh ceremony of Remembrance at the Gate.

Plugstreet

One older member who works in Pitsmoor was overcome with emotion to find the name of his lost uncle on the Plugstreet Memorial and the whole band were stunned to completive silence by a visit to the Tyne Cot, the largest CWGC Cemetery on the Western Front with 11,953 burials and surrounded by walls carrying a further 34,870 names of which Panels 125 to 128 commemorate the “Pals” with no known grave who fell from August 16th 1917.

The band always leads the Dore Remembrance parade and this year will commemorate the “Pals” again in the Winter Gardens in the afternoon of Remembrance Sunday. They plan a display of the photographs taken during the trip and to repeat parts of the act of commemoration for those “Pals” wounded in action and laid to rest in Cemeteries scattered across the City.

The Roll

That 90 or so years ago young men were from Pitsmoor, Burngreave and area were killed by the gun has been forgotten and so we would like to place on record the following names of whom the addresses are known:

MITCHELL, Private, JOHN THOMAS, 62, Ruthin St., Grimesthorpe, Sheffield. Grave Ref. II. A. 6.

MUNRO, Private, JAMES BINGLEY, Died of wounds 6 July 1916. 188, Barnsley Road, Pitsmoor, Sheffield.

GLEAVE, Private, FRANCIS, Killed in action 14 June 1916. Carbrook, Sheffield

PHILBEY, Serjeant, GEORGE, Died of wounds 10 July 1916. Age 24. 67, Duncombe St., Walkley, Sheffield,

COGGON, Private, ALFRED HOLMES,. 1 July 1917. 111, Pitsmoor Rd., Sheffield.

APPLEBY, Private, Died of wounds 1 July 1916. Age 22. 163, Ellesmere Rd., Sheffield.

MACLAURIN, Lance Corporal, EDGAR, Killed in action 1 July 1916. Age 23. 112, South View Rd., Sheffield.

BARTON, Private, J A, Killed in action 1 July 1916. Age 22 6, Upper Hanover St., Sheffield.

BENNETT, Private, JOSEPH A., Killed in action 1 July 1916. Age 24. 135, South View Rd., Sheffield.

BLENKARN, Lance Corporal, WILLIAM. Age 25. 85, Rock St., Sheffield

PRIESTLEY, Private, HARRY, Killed in action 1 July 1916. Age 21. 2, Clun Rd., Pitsmoor, Sheffield.

HAMPTON, Corporal, FRED BARMORE, Age 21. Son of Charles Hampton, of Kingfield Rd., Sheffield.

MOULDS, Corporal, HARRY, 1 July 1916. Age 24. 28, Ellerton Rd., Pitsmoor, Sheffield.

WAINWRIGHT, Private, EDMOND, 1 July 1916. 24, Longley Avenue, Norwood Estate, Pitsmoor, Sheffield.

WHITE, Private, RONALD HARRY, 1 July 1916. Age 27. 34, Catherine St., Pitsmoor, Sheffield.

And buried in BURNGREAVE CEMETERY,

BRAMELD, Private, R O,. 14 December 1916. Age 28. Son of James Robert and Fanny Brameld, of 216, Tullibardine Rd., Ecclesall, Sheffield.

TIMMONS, Private, THOMAS HENRY, Died of sickness 8 November 1917. Age 26. Son of John Thomas and Annie Timmons, of 39, Granby Rd., Firth Park, Sheffield.