Made in Sheffield

I am going a bit “off-topic” here, but I came across a website run by an old friend from “years back” that I worked with at Brinsworth Strip Mills. At that time the company was part of British Steel, having previously been “Steel Peech and Tozer”, which in turn was part of the United Steel group.

Anyway Don Alexander was a salesman working on the export department. Whilst I sold steel to Sheffield and the West Midlands and got to visit such exotic places as Dudley and Telford, (funnily I ended up in Telford, but that’s another story), poor Don got to visit places where you needed a passport and could not rely on getting a good Yorkshire pudding.

Don always had a “dry” Yorkshire sense of humour and was passionate about all things Sheffield, so it came as no surprise to me when I later heard that he had set up a shop that at a time when far eastern imports were killing the traditional Sheffield industries, sold only goods made in Sheffield.

At the time I thought it was a brave (if foolhardy) venture, so I was delighted to discover that the business appears not only to have survived but seems to be thriving.

It appears that Don has got imself an apprentice, and is in the process of writing a book on owd Sheffield dialect to be published soon. I only lived a few miles away in Rotherham, and sometimes I needed a translator to understand the lingo. Maybe I’ll get myself a copy of that book, so when I visit I can converse with the best of em.

If you appreciate old fashioned craftsmanship at its finest, visit Sheffield-Made for a selection of stylish goods