Library is now rubble

I know there will be many people like myself who used to use the library often and will be sorry to see it has gone. Many letters have been written about its demise but to me it was not just a building, it was part of my working life.

The library was opened in about 1973 but a couple of years earlier in a workshop on Wentworth Road, Rawmarsh (Ellis Pearson Glass Co Ltd) a group of aluminium fabricators began the job of making the doors, windows and partitions in brown aluminium.

Along with myself was Trevor Thompson, Ian Shenton, John Russel and Keith Roden, plus Pete Burdin, who worked on his own in the milling shop where he made most of the doors with some help from us when we had the time.

When each item was assembled each surface had to be protected with heavy duty blue tape and then stored ready for the fixers to fix on site.

I have used the library for various reasons over the years. I enjoyed going to the arts centre to the country music concerts put on by Mel Hague, who on October 4, 1978, recorded his performance which came out on LP of which I still have a signed copy that has its £2.75 price sticker on it.

During the 1980s I had quite a few of my paintings on velvet exhibited four or five times in the upstairs area.

The archive section was a popular destination. A few years ago I decided to look and see if there was anything about Coleridge Road Junior School for the years between 1953-7 when I was there and was given a register to look through. I found the years and it showed all the pupils with the register number (mine being 1834), name, where they lived and which school they moved on to having taken the 11-Plus exam. Most of us went to Spurley Hey but those who passed the exam had the choice of grammar school, girls high school or Oakwood Technical College.

I remembered about 35 of the 39 who were in the class I was in when I left in summer 1960 and decided to go back to the archive department to check it out but when I received the register I had to sign the Official Secrets Act so there is nothing I can say except my roll number was 348. It might be on-line now, so it might be easier.

I also went in to the main exhibition hall and saw some large paintings of Rotherham street scenes. I looked for a signature and saw they were by Pete Bartle and then I saw a notice which said he had died at his home in Scarborough.

When I started work at Ellis Pearson in November 1967 I met Pete as he was the works driver and got to know him very well. He never mentioned anything about doing paintings, his hobby was model trains and he left in the early 70s to work in a signal box on the railway line just outside Scarborough.

I found out later that he had tried to exhibit his paintings when he was alive a couple of times but his brother said he was turned down. Some of his paintings were used by the Rotherham Hospice on their calendar a few years ago and I think they are to be used on next year’s calendar.

So there, you have a few memories of Rotherham Library. What are yours?

Ray Hill, Greenfield Road, East Herringthorpe