Sunday at Bill's Mother's: 6th July 2025
Biggest Big Run yet. Lining up the grouse guns. Citywide land grab warning. Steps to the future.
Morning. Last month, a small Sheffield park combined epic ultrarunning, feasting, singing, and celebrating the many cultures of our city with the horrors of a one-sided war just a few thousand miles away. Today we have stories of a few of the participants in the Small Park Big Run.
Our news briefing this week includes the Sheffield MP standing against the big guns of the grouse shooting lobby, a potential city-wide land grab of miles of metre-wide meadows, and a national confirmation that walking is the way forward.
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Brief News
Shooting Parties: The grouse shooting debate of last week makes interesting reading on Hansard for anyone who watched grouse industry pollution blow into Sheffield last year. The debate was strangely one-sided, observed opening and closing speaker in the debate, M.P. for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, John Lamont.
An array of shooting supporters from grouse moor constituencies lined up the familiar burning moors prevent wildfires, and the shooting industry provides money and jobs, so what will replace them? arguments. They added the bogus biodiversity bonus of a selection of bird species like Curlew and Golden Plover that seem to benefit from traditional grouse moor management, without mentioning all the other plants, animals, birds, insects and other wild things that really don’t.
And we all hate illegal raptor persecution, said all the speakers, even though so many birds of prey keep disappearing over grouse moors in suspicious circumstances.
On the other side of the debate, pretty much on her own, was Olivia Blake, M.P. for Sheffield Hallam (which includes a stretch of Sheffield moorland), who concluded with: “Driven grouse shooting is a relic of a bygone age. Its environmental damage, ethical failures and economic myths are indefensible in the 21st century. It is time for the House to show leadership, listen to the evidence and empower communities to put our climate, our wildlife and our rural economies first, and consign this practice to history.”
By now, we all know what ‘the government has no plans to…’ means. Either: ‘We’re not going to admit it just now, but we’ll certainly have plans in the future, when the politics are right,’ or ‘We’re going to kick it down the road for a few years and see what voters think then.’
The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs Daniel Zeichner said: “Although the Government have no plans to ban driven grouse shooting, it is vital that wildlife and habitats are protected, and that the law is respected by everyone.”
Grass Grabbing: We covered the story of the Dobbin Hill verge over a year ago. I now hear that the Transport Secretary has decided on a public enquiry, effectively into the selling of a strip of grassland bordering a public road to a landowner who wants to increase the size of their garden.
A very local issue, you may think, but objectors, including nearby residents and the Millhouses Ecclesall & Carter Knowle Community Group reckon if the sale goes ahead, it may set a precedent for our cash-strapped council to sell off highway land and grass verges across the city, whether or not they’re a wildlife corridor or a nice green space for the neighbours. We’ll aim to keep you posted.
Nifty Footwork: Last week the national media were excited about the public health savings to be made by enabling more people to get around under their own steam (as reported here over the last year or two, of course, ahead of the game as we are).
Twelve of the country’s regional mayors, including our own Oliver Coppard and fellow mayors from political parties not usually associated with this kind of thing, appear to have recognised the local benefits of investing in walking and wheeling. I’ll be speaking to Ed Clancy and Nicola Marshall from the South Yorkshire active travel team very soon to find out what this will mean for the Outdoor City.
Big Run, Steep Park
Two weeks ago, hundreds of people set out to climb one of Sheffield’s most notorious hills, again and again (over 100 times in at least one case). June 2025 was the biggest turnout yet for the Small Park Big Run, the walk, jog, run or ultra run around Meersbrook Park in support of charities for women’s education and children’s mental health in Palestine.
The First Timer: by Ellen Beardmore
"Whose idea was this?" I thought, standing on the start line of Small Park, Big Run.
It was noon on the hottest day of the year - a sweltering, shirt-sticking-to-you 30 degrees - and we were about to run up a hill with a gradient of 25%. Repeatedly.
The idea had, of course, been mine. And after being humbled by the Meersbrook Park hill a couple of times, we all got into a rhythm of the up then down 1K route.
This was my first go at Small Park, Big Run. The best thing about it - apart from the volunteer spraying water on your face at the crest of the hill - were the community vibes.
Young, old, serious runners, families with prams, we were all there for a great cause and to try Sheffield's quirkiest endurance event.
Enthusiastic supporters cheered from the sidelines and as few people were there to really race, it felt like a joint endeavour.
Retiring after 40 minutes, the thought of some determined runners continuing for 23 hours stayed with me all weekend long.
Biggest Big Run Yet
There were 610 entrants to the Small Park Big Run 2025, up 20% since last year. In the week of the run, the national media ran pictures and stories of starving children and continued reports of families being shot and bombed in Gaza.
“I’m not sure why we had so many more people taking part,” said Jonathan Feldman from the organising team. “It’s as bad as last year. But maybe the situation for Palestinian people has a reputation now.”
At the event’s finale, around 300 people sang out from the park as part of this year’s Migration Matters festival, and Jonathan said at least 85 marshalls signed up to help over the 24 hours between noon on Saturday 20th to midday on the Sunday, with at least four on duty even in the darkness of Sunday morning to help guide and encourage runners.
“I was very proud of everyone in the team, and the runners and walkers. Everyone felt welcome and supported,” he added, which is always the ethos of the event, as a stark contrast to the current misery of life in places like Gaza and the West Bank.
Over £20,000 has been raised so far for charities supporting Palestinian women and children, he added, with next year’s run dates set for 20th/21st June.
At least half a dozen people ran or walked for the majority of the 24 hours, and I’ll have a longer post soon on why and how they set about their mind boggling tasks while most of us were asleep in the summer heat.
The cause was always part of the motivation, but an opportunity to put yourself through a mind and limb aching challenge in a park on your doorstep, while people cheered you on and sprayed you with a mist of water at the hilltop, was also important.
Dylan Llloyd - 84 laps / 52 miles
“I wanted to be involved in an activity over all the 24 hours, either running, helping, marshalling or taking part in the night walks. I’d done one marathon before this, and wanted to try something new.”
Dylan used the hillclimb as a ‘rest’ he said, walking slowly up every kilometre before running back down through the lantern-lit woods to the cheerful run HQ, before circling back round to the hill climb again.
“Local people were uniting all over the park about the plight of other people in an awful, situation. It felt right to be taking part.”
Georgina - 60 laps / 37 miles
Georgina has worked as an English teacher in the West Bank, and has written about the experience. She walked for the full 24 hours, “with a few little sit downs”, and kept her identity hidden as she intends to return and report again about the conditions of life in the area.
“I’m not an athlete, I smoked for the best part of 18 years, I’m not an exercise kind of person. But in the West Bank people are made to feel miserable, and as I walked round I was thinking about people in Gaza who are walking all the time just to find safety.”
Georgina also carried a 10kg rucksack, with practical things like water, spare clothes, and cashew nuts to keep her going, but also to symbolise how Palestinian people often have to carry most of their possessions around with them all the time.
At midnight on Saturday night, after 12 hours, she was already walking like a penguin, she says, due to the pain in her feet. “I thought wow, I’ve got to do that all over again. I said to myself, ‘Ok, this really hurts, but I’m not in a rush, I can slow down. I need to carry on, this is what it’s all about.’”
Tom Valentine - 131 laps / 81 miles
“I just like to run. I know Small Park Big Run is the safest place to do a 24 hour run, you’re never more then 500 metres from food, shelter and a first aider. It’s also by far the cheapest ultra "race" in the UK, and it’s just15 minutes away from my house.”
Bat Signals
It’s a good time for bats. Next week I hope to have a post about the strange tiny mammals enjoying the midges in our dark summer skies. It’s the month for bat walks and bat watching, so we’ll be learning about bat detecting, big footed water bats and the meaning of a bat raspberry, all thanks to the South Yorkshire Bat Group.
More What’s On Out There (from Sunday 6th July)
A tiny selection from our new (and regularly updated) What’s On Out There news and listings post for June and beyond.
Sun 6th - Bloom Sheffield plant sale & seed swap (Botanical Gardens)
Sun 6th - Sheffield Conservation Volunteers - learn how to carry out a nature survey
Mon 7th - Hathersage Gala fell race (£8)
Tues 8th - Friends of Ecclesall Woods volunteer & footpath repair session
Tues 8th - SRWT Volunteering - Sunnybank
Weds 9th - SY Orienteers- Millhouses Park (£2-5)
Thurs 9th - Green City Action Grimesthorpe community allotment
Sat 12th - Shire Brook Valley - Volunteer Session
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