Sunday at Bill's Mother's: 15th February 2026
Grey days. MBE for mudlarking. Secret Seating. Out there news.
Morning. Yesterday, the sun came back. After weeks of gloom, there are finally some yellow patches in next week’s weather forecast. We learn today how Europe was behind our miserable greyness.
We have news about the reappearance of the River Sheaf after being covered by Sheffield station 150 years ago, and a new trail along the inner city Porter Brook. And after the King’s Lord Lieutenant handed a volunteer’s MBE to one of our more enterprising Friends groups, we pre-launch (I think that’s the phrase) Commoner’s Muck to help even more of you make friends with our wild places.
Join our unique publishing social enterprise below. (We do all this thanks to our 330+ wonderful full subscribers, our only source of income to pay the bills, who’ve reckoned up we’re worth the cost of a pint of beer a month).
Out There News
River Openings - A new trail will be built alongside the inner city Porter Brook, the Sheaf & Porter Rivers Trust (SPRT) tell me, following the closure of the car park at Sylvester Street and agreements for the trail with farsighted developers Skyhouse Homes. The new section of the Porter Brook Trail will form a new riverside link from the inner ring road right into the city centre. (Our earlier post on the SPRT vision for the Lower Porter is here for full subscribers).
Meanwhile, the (very) long awaited lightwell to view the confluence of the Sheaf and Porter under Sheffield Station is approaching on Platform 5.
After almost seven years of bureaucratic delays, SPRT tell me they hope the lightwell, together with viewing rests and celebratory haiku poems, should finally be installed this year, after they raised the funds required some time ago.
Getting light into rivers hidden for centuries in dark tunnels will also improve the life chances of fish and river invertebrates. And when the culvert tours begin for the year, maybe you’ll be able to wave at your mates waiting for a train high above.
New Birds of Sheffield - I’ve seen a copy of the beautiful New Birds of the Sheffield Area book from Sheffield Bird Study Group (above), after joining 100 local birders at the launch, and hearing how authors Richard Hill and David Wood, and SBSG members, spent five years writing, and collating the photos, illustrations and data to put the book together.
It’ll be on sale soon, probably via the Sheffield Bird Study Group website. I’ll keep you posted.
Gloomy Outlook
Are the grey days over yet? The last few weeks were described as ‘permafog’ by some of my disorientated colleagues at the Tribune.
“Can anyone save us from the never ending fog?” they cried in panic. “The ever present grey mist is starting to create a semi-dystopian vibe. Does anyone know why we’re experiencing this?”
Those of us who grew up with grey new years were baffled by their alarm. Isn’t this what it’s always like after Christmas? Not if you’re used to flatter landscapes, it seems, or maybe not even if your homeland was west rather than east of the Pennines.
I asked the city’s weather data manager, Alistair McLean from Sheffield Museums. “The rain’s stalled,” he said, as I glanced out at the dregs of last week. “It’s not unusual for towns at the foot of hills.”
Alistair always stresses he’s a weather recorder not a meteorologist, and usually refers me to the local weather oracle published in 2011 by Sorby Natural History Society: Sheffield’s Weather, by Gaynor Boon and Adrian Middleton.
“Anticyclonic gloom,” they explain. “This occurs when layer cloud (stratocumulus) forms over the North Sea as dry continental air collects moisture on its sea passage. With the exception of the Lincolnshire Wolds, the ground between Sheffield and the east coast is relatively low lying, and with an easterly wind the cloud may extend far inland and be remarkably persistent.”
Effectively, our weeks of murk came on cold winds from the east carrying continental air dampened by the North Sea, which then got stuck here thanks to the Pennines. Not so long ago, it would have been mixed up with sulphurous industrial smoke too, to leave us all gasping under a yellowy grey smog.
This year’s winter pall hanging over the city may have been dispiriting and strange, but it’s worth remembering how damaging those glooms would once have been. Industrial smog clouds in still winter air led to smoke pollution accumulating over the city for days or weeks, leaving diseases like pneumonia and bronchitis in their wake.
Even a few years ago, you could look down from winter sunlight on the western moors to see a brown tinged haze over the city centre, which I learned was made up more from exhaust fumes than factory smoke in post-industrial Sheffield.
This year, it seems the murk was mainly natural, and to my mind it was eerily spectacular to pick your way through damp clouds resting in our woods. As it often does, the sky just took a winter break in the Outdoor City.
If there are any real mist, fog, smirr or mizzle experts out there, feel free to correct or add to any of the above in the comments.
Mudlarks
The way to really appreciate what volunteers do for Sheffield’s wild spaces is to go out and watch them in the mud, having the time of their lives squelching around, digging out paths, tearing up bracken or planting trees in winter parks. The fact that it’s all for the public good makes it even more fun, it seems.
As covered by this publication and the Sheffield Tribune over recent weeks, Sheffield has far more voluntary groups toiling in our woods, parks and riversides than any other British city apart from that London, which is almost twenty times bigger.
The council’s officer dealing with this issue, Laura Alston, is celebrating it to anyone who’ll listen, (not least city councillors).
She’s surveyed the almost 250 environmental groups who take an interest in our wild places, and notes there are some gaps, where she hopes even more Sheffielders might get out into their local mud too. (The far north west, for example, and the south east corner of the city, where several groups seem to have ceased operating over the last few years, often due to their members getting older and tireder).
Laura says there are younger people interested in volunteering, but may have different incentives and availability to a traditional retired volunteer with time and enthusiasm to spare on wet weekday mornings. Students like to volunteer for local causes, for example, but may only be around for a year or so, whereas people in their thirties and forties might prefer family sessions, where kids can join in.
Voluntary wild space groups are trying to take all this on, but the ducking and weaving nowse required to make a success of your projects in a world of grants and tiny local authority budgets is often daunting.
Laura wants to help new volunteers learn how to get started. She says people who want to help launch a new group, or relaunch a moribund one, are particularly welcome, or if you just want to find a busy local group, or find work you like doing, get in touch too. (She’s at Laura.Alston@sheffield.gov.uk).
A few local businesses have started helping out, and she wants to hear from any organisations who could help with money, people or resources like tools or equipment.
We’ll soon be starting a new section in this magazine to let you know about our heroic volunteers out there, along with as much current information we can find about grants, keen local companies, new groups, and how you can get started in your local mud. It’ll be called Commoner’s Muck, so watch out for it here soon.
Last week, a local wild space group who launched five years ago, having listened to older groups and learned all the creative networking strategies required, were officially awarded the highest Royal accolade for volunteering, the King’s Award for Voluntary Service. (The equivalent of an MBE for voluntary groups, I’m told).
Members of the highly effective Friends of Whirlow Brook Park group were handed a trophy from the Lord Lieutenant for South Yorkshire (the King’s representative in the county), Dame Hilary Chapman.
“The King’s Award is presented to groups for outstanding work that benefits the local community,” she said, sheltering from the driving rain in Whirlow Brook Hall with Whirlow Brook Friends and supporters, including Lord Mayor Safiya Saeed.
“What the awarders are looking for is those groups that are clearly head and shoulders above their peers, and you clearly are one of those groups.” By peers, she meant all the other voluntary groups across the UK, not necessarily the hundreds in Sheffield.
The awards committee felt the thirty active Whirlow Brook Park volunteers had gone above and beyond to tidy up the park, build family trails, partner up on local biodiversity schemes, build new paths and gardens and launch a community orchard in a former bramble and ivy jungle.
After the recent calculations by the council that our wild space volunteers are worth well over 2 million pounds a year to the city, I’m hoping Commoner’s Muck will help our green and blue space groups learn from each other, and maybe get a visit from the King’s representative themselves in future.
“We thought we were too ‘young’ and that other groups would be equally, if not more deserving,” said Shelagh Woolliscroft, FOWBP chair, alongside the new crystal trophy, thanking “everyone who has supported us on the journey. But this day really belongs to all our regular volunteers who turn out in all weathers and perform miracles.”
More What’s On Out There (from Sunday 15th February)
A tiny selection from our new (and regularly updated) What’s On Out There news and listings post for the late winter. (Full version for full members, preview for all).
Sun 15th - Sheffield Mass Cycle Rides (from Tudor Square)
Mon 16th - Wardsend Cemetery - bird survey
Mon 16th - Whirlow Brook Park volunteer morning
Tues 17th - Friends of Ecclesall Woods volunteer & footpath repair session
Weds 18th - Sheffield Ramblers Walk - Matlock & Bakewell (11m)
Thurs 19th - Green City Action Grimesthorpe community allotment
Fri 20th - SRWT Volunteering - Woodhouse Washlands
Sat 21st - Sorby Natural History Society’s South Yorkshire Natural History Day at Treeton (open to all)
Sat 21st - Wadsley & Loxley Commoners Winter Bird Walk
Secret Seating 18
We couldn’t resist a fog-bound secret seat this week. You can just about make it out in our murky shot, but where is it? And congratulations to gold medal winner for SS17 Janet Milton. Let’s have your guesses (and any other thoughts on today’s post) in the comments below.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please forward it to everyone who might like it.
We’re still edging closer to our 380 full supporter target where we’ll have enough income to become genuinely sustainable, and able to bring a little work to a few other writers to make this magazine bigger and better. As you know, you can join our social enterprise for the meagre cost of a Millhouses flat white a month. Thanks for reading.