OCCASIONALLY, I walk at the rear of the Broadway council estate that overlooks the beautiful valley of Stainborough, with the aim of building-up stamina after a series of major operations.
I’m very grateful for the sturdy home-made bench that some thoughtful person has positioned beside the well-worn path. The brass plaque reads:
‘Take A Pew and Enjoy The View
In memory of Jackie, Maureen, Mike and Ray.
After a few minutes’ rest I continue on towards Dark Lane, leading to Keresforth Hill Road, past a familiar snicket on my left. This short-cut to Broadway and the fire station evokes a memory told to me by my dad many years ago.
It’s January 1942 and at last there are signs, for the first time since the Dunkirk catastrophe, that Britain really does have a good chance of stopping the evil fascist dictators of the world.
At 10 minutes past 10 on the morning of Tuesday 6th, a deafening noise can be heard from a struggling British bomber that’s coughing and spluttering only a few yards above the Kingstone rooftops. One of the two engines is in flames.
“Fred! Fred! Come and see this!” shouts Grandma Steele. My fourteen year old father rushes to the back door of 30 Harvey Street and stares open-mouthed as he sees British airmen leaping from the plane, one after the other.
Their parachutes open, which slows their descent but they must all hit terra firma at a significant speed. Will they survive?
The bomber is heading north towards Pogmoor and losing height. Suddenly, there’s the sound of a crash and already my dad’s racing through his front door, down the street and up the ‘allotment walks’, towards Broadway. The parachutists might need help.
Broadway is a very quiet rural lane with large fields at the end where it meets Keresforth Hill. My dad’s out of breath.
“I think one chap landed over there, Fred!” shouts his best mate, Phil Townend, who’s sprinted up from Della Avenue. “He must be near the farmer’s duck pond. He dropped like a stone.”
They jog along a path that leads to the farmhouse and already there are several adults and three geese on guard.
“Bugger off, will you?” says one ‘brusson’ chap, smoking a Sherlock Holmes pipe. “There’s nowt to see.” But Phil and my dad aren’t easily intimidated.
“I can see one of the airmen, Phil,” says my dad, excited. “Look. He’s there, sat on a chair, just inside the kitchen door. He’s got one leg on a stool. Look, he’s twisting and writhing in pain.”
A few minutes later the local bobby arrives on his pushbike and sternly warns the curious onlookers that, “there’s nowt to see here. Move along now.”
My dad and Phil turn tail – they’ve seen this bobby give youngsters a ‘scutch’ before.
Later in the afternoon they both go to the council rubbish-tip, on the northern side of the railway track on Pogmoor, to see the plane wreckage. It’s nearly four o’clock in the afternoon and already getting dark but, amazingly, there’s very little to see. The emergency services converged on the scene immediately and have been eating away at the evidence like a shoal of piranhas, trying to make it appear the crash never happened.
Maintaining morale wins wars.
The body of the brave pilot who sacrificed himself in order to steer the plane away from residential housing, is removed quickly.
By next day, no one except eye-witnesses would guess that a plane had crashed there at all.
Then I’m back in 2026 and I consider the other reason this farmhouse in Dark Lane is significant.
During the early 1970s, the property was bought by a wonderful lower-league professional footballer. Johnny Quinn was a much under-rated midfielder for Sheffield Wednesday, appearing on the left wing in the 1966 FA Cup Final at Wembley. Later, he captained Division Two side, Rotherham United – under Tommy Docherty. What a shame he never played for the Super Reds.
His signature song at Millmoor was Bob Dylan’s, Mighty Quinn – made famous by Manfred Mann:
“Come on without/ Come on within/ You’ll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn”
Hearing thousands of Rotherham fans chanting his song, over and over, was thrilling for the Millers and intimidating for away fans.
One walk, one bench, one farmhouse, two memories.
To discover more, Google: ‘Dave Cherry, aeroplane wreck’.
