The Great Sheffield Flood took place in 1864 after the Dale Dyke Dam located to the north of the city burst its banks. Within 20 minutes, the floodwaters had devastated villages and areas of the city along the river, killing nearly 250 people in what was recognised as a major national disaster. This little-known part of Sheffield ’s history is the subject of a 30 minute documentary entitled ‘The Forgotten Flood’ , which focuses on commemorative events that took place in 2004. The director, Phil Parkin, was interviewed for assemblage by Joanna Bending after the film was shown at the Showroom Cinema in May 2005.

JB - What made you want to make a film about the Sheffield Flood?

PP – I knew the story since being a child. My introduction to it was through my Grandma giving me a book by Sam Harrison printed in 1898, then on the back of that learning about it as a kid about seven years old at Loxley School . It’s got all the facets of an interesting story: the history side of it, the archaeological side with the ARCUS excavation of the Wisewood Works and tragically, it’s an entertaining story. There are so many different stories – it’s got all the ingredients to make something quite interesting.

JB – The title of the film is ‘The Forgotten Flood’. Why did you choose it?

PP – Because its memory has been lost over time, almost airbrushed from history. This was the biggest disaster to hit modern Victorian England and no-one in Sheffield knows about it!

JB – How was the film produced and financed?

PP – The film was produced by me as a VeryMuchSo production. VMS are my employers – makers of film documentaries. It was financed by VMS and me at very low budget cost, but never at the sake of quality. A test of ‘producer’s skills’ to say the least.

JB - At the outset, who did you intend the audience to be? How did this affect your approach to the research and presentation of the historical material?

PP – From the outset it was intended for everyone, with the target audience primarily children and the elderley. In terms of how this affected the research the content had to appeal to both ages, and I also tried to make it in a way that entertained me (and thus my age group). For schools and children it needed to fulfil certain factual and educative criteria, and in a way that’s why the film tells the story and not passes judgement or focuses on the scandal that followed. The only message I had was to make people aware of the events and basically say we need to remember this.

In terms of editing, we tried to make it of a certain style and pace. Knowing that we didn’t have any moving footage from 1864 we had to be creative with the script, the stills and the illustrations! In terms of the material, it was really crucial we got the stills – the old adage ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ and with the devastation pictures this is so true. For the kids it had to engage, inform and entice the viewer to know more. For schools and kids we also chaptered the DVD for teaching ease and usability. We made the film 30 minutes for a number of reasons. It would fit well in a school, to fit into a lesson and also to engage the kids, and for broadcast on TV, that being the ultimate aim. It could easily be a 3 hour epic – there was so much to cover, but what it allowed us to do was get to the crux of each matter – to break it down and allow me to decide what story I want to tell.

JB - The response to the film at the Showroom a couple of weeks ago was very positive (although how many of the audience were friends of yours is open to question……). Is this the sort of showing you had in mind?

PP - With it being your own work, you want to see it on the big screen. You want to get it out there and get the criticism and feedback. So, after getting the DVDs done and the schools interested, the next progression was to get it on the big screen. With it being a Sheffield film it was easier to pitch – the Showroom is really open to short films and first time directors. They’re really good in accommodating people. They did it under the banner of a special screening, and hopefully it will get to as many people as possible. I’d love to do more screenings and potentially send it to festivals. I hope I’ll be able to get it shown at the Documentary Festival at the Showroom this year, and to get it broadcast on TV, but that’s costly in its own sense. It’s a difficult industry and it’s hard to get on the ladder. You’ve got to keep pestering people.

JB - You mentioned in the Q&A session after the film that you chose to focus on the human tragedy of the situation, rather than the political side of things. What made you choose this particular aspect?

PP - I could have told the story of ‘The Sheffield Flood’, but I wanted to tell the story of ‘The Forgotten Flood’, rather than the scandal and the political story. First and foremost it was a tragedy, and that was the kind of story I tried to tell. But I couldn’t do half an hour and not mention the compensation claims, because it’s drama and it contributes to the story as a whole. The idea behind bringing in new aspects in the last five or 10 minutes was to get people interested in finding out more. Hopefully that lends to kids as well – they can go and research it, like I did when I was younger. There is definitely a film or TV drama-type programme in the scandal side of the events and the politics that overshadowed the enormous loss of life. I just didn’t want the memory of the events and the dead to be overshadowed by the injustice of what followed.

JB - It seems from the interviews shown in the film that that the story of the Flood is passed down as part of the ‘collective memory’ of many people who are local to the area. Did you find that people whose families were affected by the Flood had a different connection to the events than other people from the local area, or people who knew about the events but had less of a connection to the area (e.g. hadn’t been brought up in Sheffield )?

PP – Definitely, those that share a personal connection with the flood were very proud of their ancestors and almost inspired by the resolve they showed. The areas that were on the route certainly know more about it than those that weren’t. As the flood waters dissipated into the city centre, so does the memory, which is tragic in a way, because it did really affect the whole city. You go up to Low and High Bradfield and everyone, certainly those over the age of 50, will know about the flood. Then you get down to Loxley, where I went to school, and Malin Bridge, and I think it’s the area between Bradfield and Loxley where most of the knowledge is, because that was where the biggest loss-of-life was. As you go through town, as the waters fed into the rivers, there are fewer stories of death and destruction. It’s fair to say that few actually know about the 1864 flood, never mind understand the extent of it, which is a real pity. The flood is really an integral part of the city’s history, as the archaeological work shows, the scars are still around the city – we just need to acknowledge them.

The thing is that everyone’s interested in different parts of it – some are more interested in the actual flood and how it happened, some in the force of the water as it came out and spread, where the last death was. The first loss of life was a one day old child, which is a poignant story, and also sad in its own regard, but it affected everyone – from one-day old people to 80-odd year old people. That’s one of the good things in terms of film making is that it appeals to so many different groups of people and so many different interests. And hopefully it’s cut in an entertaining and educative way. It’s certainly got an element of everything and more……

JB - Do you think the lack of knowledge once you get into the city is related to the fact that many of the populations in that area have been displaced? I’m thinking of Neepsend and beyond, where you’ve had the clearance of the houses during the 60s and 70s.

I’ve been looking into it, and it’s amazing how many houses sprung up in the 20s and were knocked down in the 50s. Areas like Neepsend became very neglected in the 70s and 80s and it would be interesting to see if there’s a shift in the trend relating to how these areas developed and the population dissipated throughout Sheffield , as with the memory of the Flood. At the time of the Flood, Neepsend would have been a hamlet, like Malin Bridge and Loxley, but it’s not now, so I’m sure that correlates with why the memory has disappeared. That would be an interesting theory to follow through – maybe there’s a paper in it!

JB - There may well be! What were your historical resources?

PP - Bizarrely, these are hard questions, because you forget how you got there. Malcolm Nunn (Bradfield Parish Archivist), the Flood group (set up to organise the 2004 commemorations) and people I knew from the area were most important (especially memories from descendants) – passing on knowledge. In the areas we mentioned, like Malin Bridge , everybody’s got a little story.

JB - Yes, my boyfriend’s parents own the ‘Farfield Inn’ in Neepsend, and that’s where I first heard about the Flood. You showed a picture of it in the film.

I drive past that every day, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to have it in – it’s familiar to me and when you compare it to the picture….. a lot of people probably don’t realise there’s a river there, even though there’s a bridge you can’t really see it.

JB - You used a variety of visual media in the film – photos, illustrations, footage of a local amateur dramatics production – and I felt they worked much better than the usual over-the-top reconstructions that seem to be a common feature of modern historical and archaeological documentaries. How did you select these particular images from the vast body of material in the archives?

It was as simple as to get hold of everything we could, clear it for permission for use and pick the best and most relevant ones! I toyed with the idea of trying to do reconstructions but the budget didn’t allow. Also, I think it might have taken away from the importance of the descendants that are around today. There were two ways I wanted to tell the story, by the events that actually occurred, and I could present that in a stylish and entertaining way by the edit, but also by the descendants and by what they say – the memory that most of us don’t have. I thought they were the most important things to emphasise. Rather than trying to paint a picture for people to follow, I wanted them to imagine it in their own heads. That fits with the kids as well – I didn’t want them to watch it as passive viewers, I wanted them to be active, and then be able to go away and say, ‘Oh, that man that was holding the bed into the corner of the house…. What was his name again?’ and then maybe look in the books and find out his name, and when he died, or something like that.

JB - I think with such a serious subject matter, you risk cheapening the issue with reconstructions if they’re not done well.

When I watch other documentaries, I can see they’re had a massive budget, but I don’t think they really outstrip themselves in terms of originality. When you’re constrained to a certain budget, you’ve got to beg, borrow and steal people. You’re trying to do something that’s not that easy, so you try and push yourself to do something that’s the best that you can, and perhaps you go further than you might do if things were a little bit easier. But I’ve yet to find that out….

JB - Rony Robinson (BBC Radio Sheffield presenter) narrated the film and his delivery was perfect, as ever – any good stories about working with him?

Rony was great. The film in a way made itself. Because it’s a Sheffield story, everyone was interested and shared the ambition of seeing it made. He said, ‘yeah, come to my house and we’ll do it’. So I went to his house and he’s got a wooden floor and he’s got this new little dog. Every time we were recording you could just hear it pattering as it ran across the floor. It took about 3 hours in the end to do just over 30 minutes of voiceover. He was brilliant, really accommodating. He’s a talented guy in his own right, as a playwright, and it was such a coup to get him to do it. I think it really has made the film. A lot of times when you’re editing, things don’t work out as you think, but that did. He said in the Q&A that he wants someone to blame, but that wasn’t the story I was trying to tell.

JB - Sheffield people seem to be really enthusiastic about their heritage.

Yes, they are, but I don’t think they go that extra yard to promote it. Sheffield is a proud city, but it doesn’t shout loud enough. We’ve got the oldest football team in the world, Sheffield F.C., we’ve got the oldest football ground in the world at Hallam, two massive Universities…… It’s, what, the fourth or fifth largest city in the country? We’ve got the steel industry, professional sports boxers, Naz was champion of the world, and others now, Clinton Woods, Johnny Nelson. But we get so far – we’re saying to each other but we don’t really tell everybody else, and we really should. It’s something I hope to keep pushing. I was born and raised here, moved away and came back. Home is where the heart is.

JB - Is that something you’re keen to keep doing? If funding allows…..

Yes, definitely, there are so many stories and so many histories here in Sheffield . How and where I achieve it I don’t know. I might not be here in Sheffield , and it might not be a Sheffield story. The ideas are here and the materials are here, and I know it’s something I’ll always try and do in my career. I’m from Sheffield and it’s a great city. It’s tough in a way, but good as well.

JB - Were you aware of the archaeological work that had been done by ARCUS (the Department of Archaeology’s field unit) on a site affected by the Flood at Wisewood? There was an episode of Time Team that mentioned work there. Was this something you had considered including in the film?

PP – I was aware of it, but I wanted the film to have its own identity and so decided not to include it. Watching that episode of Time Team, it really interested me and I thought it was great. The Wisewood Mill is just down from my mum and dad’s, and I used to go down there on my bike as a kid, but it’s all built over now. It was on the path of the flood, and all the history’s integrated, the steel and the Little Mesters workshops. Personally, I hate to see all these new buildings going up. I’d love to see them take the old building and renovate inside and accentuate the natural features. Nobody goes down a street any more and looks up, but if you look at the windows, there’s so much character in them. It’s not acknowledged enough.

JB - You mentioned in the film that, after the Flood, people visited the affected areas. This might be a result of the editing of a short film, but it seemed you reserved judgement on this. From your research, do you think that the visits to the area were a sort of macabre ‘disaster tourism’ or do you think they were more well-intentioned?

PP - I could have gone into details of the number of people who came to Sheffield in the weeks that followed to see the ‘Sheffield Ruins’ - some stupid number. Certainly it is suggested that some people made profits from the disaster - some clever, and stupid, and cruel people who made money out of it. There were some insurance men who touted themselves and who said ‘Give me your compensation claims and fill them in and process them. I’ll put the claim in.’ But they were taking 10%. There were a lot of vultures around preying on people’s grief and innocence. You could tell a really good story, a really good film in itself, about the scandal and the inquest and the compensation and the injustice of it all. I didn’t really feel it was appropriate to send out the message of we must remember and how horrible the events were, that we should right a wrong. I didn’t want to go down that route. It’s more important we remember what happened and all the people who died before we start asking questions and say this was wrong.

JB - You also mention the place of the Flood in ‘popular folklore’ – songs written about the events etc. Regarding the archaeological side of things, a friend of mine was digging on a site (out at Castleton, I think) and recovered a broken plate decorated with pictures of the Great Sheffield Flood. It seems that there was quite an industry for commemorative memorabilia of the disaster. What do you think this says about people’s perception of the event at the time?

PP – I think the people at the time would have had to recover as quickly as possible. The times were such that you had to help yourself, so the plate was probably some sort of private enterprise piece. Funds were raised immediately following the flood with donations coming from all over, Queen Victoria to mention one.

Some people have written to me and said ‘I’ve written a song about the Flood, it’s acoustic. Do you want to have a listen? Do you want to use it?’ There are a lot of people out there, especially in music, who have used it as material. It’s great in that respect. That it inspires people to do that.

JB - How did most of the compensation get paid? Was it directly for things such as tools, or was it for landlords to rebuild properties……?

PP - There were claims for death and injury, and also for loss of personal possessions. The immediate need was for shoes, clothes, furniture, food, which the city provided for. Then the claims – one guy claimed £800 for a collection of books. I would say probably 80-90% of people affected were working class, in the mills and doing manual labour. A workman loses all his tools and he’s stuck, really. He can’t just go to B&Q and buy more. People were given £25 for children over 13 as they were classed as workers. The other two they couldn’t get paid for as they were younger. It was related to income rather than loss of life as such. The parallel here is with the Hillsborough disaster (accident at Sheffield Wednesday football ground in 1989 when poor crowd control resulted in the death of 96 people). The rules were that no compensation would be given for loss of life or grief, and that still applied in 1989, which is I think quite an issue. I’ve read reports of a lot of people trying on, people coming in and saying they can’t move their neck and, if you look at the claims - at the doctors records or whatever exists from the time – you’d find the guy had been in with a gashed head 6 weeks before the flood. So, there were a lot of people trying to get their claws in. There were a lot of good, but a lot of bad as well.

JB – The assemblage team were quite interested in the ‘Heritage Industry’ side of it. The presentation of the events of the Flood for a more ‘public’ audience – the amateur dramatics production shown in your film, the guided walks along the Flood route and, obviously, your film itself – do you think that these indicate a revival of interest in local history? Or perhaps a change in the way ‘folklore’ is transmitted? With the more mobile population and fewer people living in the same area they grew up, I could see this happening on two levels: ‘locals’ feeling an increased need to preserve and pass on their stories, and ‘incomers’ (such as myself) wanting to learn more about their new home.

PP -I think the story does it itself. If people knew about it, it wouldn’t matter if they were from Rotherham , Manchester or Aberdeen . I think they would still be really interested in it. In terms of the modern day context, I think it’s more to do with how people feel about their heritage and what connection they’ve got with their city. And I think, I can only draw on my personal experience, Sheffield’s abundant in history and it’s certainly something I’ll pass down to my kids. I think as a society we are spreading our wings a bit more. We do have this mobile population, but hopefully the stories and the folklore aspect will still survive because it’s what ties you to your roots. I think it will always exist.

JB - People are always going to grow up somewhere and they’ll always have an interest in where they’re living.

PP - A good example to answer that question is the South African woman that’s in the film. She found out about this by doing research on her family tree over the internet that she was descended from a woman called Hannah Buckley, and that she died in the Sheffield Flood. So, local history there has reached a worldwide level. It evidently works both ways. It will spread local history across the world and root it in that place as well, with the people who are grounded and connected to it. The accessibility to more information will only help local history and family historians. When we’re older, we might speak to our grandkids over the e-mail, because we might not be in the same country, and that might be our main connection to them. Then family history and local history will be passed down through a completely different medium. The history will always exist. The way it’s passed down might change, but I think it will always remain local history.

JB - It mentions in the advertising literature for the film that this is your first film as director. Are you interested in following the theme of (local) history in your next work, or are you going to do something completely different?

PP - The material’s here in Sheffield , and the ideas are here in Sheffield . I can see lots of my future work coming out of Sheffield , whether it’s twisted, changed, adapted, fantasised, fictionalised and spun into a feature film or a TV show. I don’t know where it will go, but I know the city will continue to inspire me. The interesting part of doing this documentary was telling a story, and you can do that with features. I know I would like to work more in collaboration. The next thing I’d like to do, if finance allows, is to have a full-time producer and editor. I wouldn’t want to film the next one myself. I really enjoyed doing it, but I’d rather have someone else do it as I know they’d do a better job, and I could concentrate on the storytelling side of it.

I’ll always call Sheffield home, and it’s just gripped me because I’m rooted to it. I don’t know whether that’s a personal thing, or whether it’s due to personal connections to the city. I went to live in the States for two years and I loved it out there – a different lifestyle and experience and culture – but I always knew I’d come back to Sheffield . The longer I stayed there, the more I wanted to come back. And it’s not just the city, it’s the people – you miss your family and friends and it is all part of the same thing. It has got everything. For the job I do, I can’t think of anything it couldn’t satisfy – if I needed to do a shoot in the countryside, I could get that within 10 minutes, if I wanted inner-city hustle and bustle, I could get that in 10 minutes, if wanted somewhere in between, a suburban area, I could get that within 10 minutes. I just wish we could have a little bit better weather, and then we’d be alright!

Find out more about ‘The Forgotten Flood’ DVD at:

www.verymuchso.co.uk

Phil Parkin can be contacted through VeryMuchSo productions at:

phil@verymuchso.co.uk + 44 (0)114 266 7050

For general information on the Great Sheffield Flood and local history contact Malcolm Nunn (Bradfield Parish Archivist): + 44 (0)114 285 1736