This is the third of a series of four themed programmes made by Yorkshire Television that aired in 1987 about life on the Manor Estate of council housing in Sheffield, consisting of events on the Estate and interviews with, mostly unidentified, residents. This one focuses on what residents do in their spare time, including pigeon fanciers, fishing, gardening, youth playing on slot machines, boys boxing and down the pub on a Friday night.  It was originally transmitted on 17th August, 1987....

This is the third of a series of four themed programmes made by Yorkshire Television that aired in 1987 about life on the Manor Estate of council housing in Sheffield, consisting of events on the Estate and interviews with, mostly unidentified, residents. This one focuses on what residents do in their spare time, including pigeon fanciers, fishing, gardening, youth playing on slot machines, boys boxing and down the pub on a Friday night.  It was originally transmitted on 17th August, 1987. The film begins showing the street sign for Scotia Close, with an elderly man looking over his garden gate, and two boys practising playing their trumpets indoors.  Then on to Harborough Avenue, where a boy is practising a side drum in his bedroom and girls are practising with their majorette batons and a boy practices a marching glockenspiel in their gardens.  A group of youth walk along Nelson Mandella Walk on their way fishing, while a man tends his garden.  Then there is an interview with another resident, Barry Pennington, who is tending to the birds in his aviary. The programme moves on to pigeon fanciers getting their pigeons ringed in preparation for a race and loading them in crates onto a truck.  One of the organisers, Chris Brown, is setting up one of the racing clocks.  We then see a poster advertising Amateur Boxing at Darnall Liberal Club for Wednesday 7th January 1987, followed by a boy, Matthew Johnson, lifting weights in his bedroom, while his mother irons his boxing shirt for Manor ABA.  As Barry Pennington tends to his birds, he comments on how much joy he gets from them, and that people on the Estate, like the birds, are also caged insofar as there “is no escape from their predicament.”  The group of youth are fishing by a river, with one of them, Daryl Burberry, stating that he wants to work on a farm looking after the animals. Meanwhile Chris Brown is listening to the speaking clock on the telephone, counting down the time to a room full of pigeon fanciers all poised to simultaneously set their racing clocks.  Chris Brown then says that any pigeon fancier has to have a very understanding wife because looking after and racing the birds takes up so much time.   Tom Ismay tends his garden and talks about how much he learns from gardening and how much pleasure it gives him, stating, humorously, that he sometime tells them off and that the plants respond to this.  Young member of the marching band makes their way from their homes and then we see the band marching down a street where houses have been knocked down and new ones are going up.   Chris Brown stands in his garden waiting for his pigeons to return, as they begin to arrive back at about 2 pm on a Saturday, speaking about the thrill of winning.  Barry Pennington is in his front room sorting out his LPs, singling out Wings’ Band on the Run, and commenting on their condition, while his wife sits knitting and his daughter does her homework.  Ann Matthews is putting on her make-up, ready to go out for the night, which she explains she does every two or three weeks with her mother-in-law, to the Springwood pub.  Ann relates how men are regarded differently from women when it comes to talking to members of the opposite sex, and how often men talk as if they owned their wives, giving them permission to do things, an attitude she won’t accept.   In a boxing gym, boys of various ages are training while other youth are on slot machines in a shop.  One of them, a female, tells of how often they go there, as it is better than being out in the cold.  Two lads are playing pool, Paul Hill and Scott Sterland, both on YTS, with one of them explaining that they have nowhere else to go.   Mrs Pennington says that her daughter can only afford to go out infrequently, and gets bored, while when she was young, before television, children made their own entertainment, and were safe to play out on the streets.   An elderly woman, Eleanor ‘Angel Eyes’ Humphries, is on her amateur CB radio talking to other members of the local CB club.  She states that it would be good if other pensioners on their own could be linked up with them, although this is expensive.  She explains some of the special terms used by CB users. Inside a packed Springwood pub on a Friday evening a man plays an electric organ while another sings.  Ann Matthews is at the bar, and then sits at a crowded table with others laughing, joking and smoking.  At the Boxing fixture a local lad, with a bloody nose, is fighting another lad from the Hillsborough Club in front of a packed crowd, which includes Matthew Johnson, looking on rather uneasily.  Back in the Springwood pub Ann Matthews joins in the singing of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.  The film finishes with some more brief shots of those featured in the film. Music – Stephanie Nunn Graphics – Jim Slade Associate Producer – Michael Burke Research – Gary Horne Production Assistant – Sue Hamelman Sound Recordist – Chris Clarkson  Dubbing Editor – Alan Briggs Dubbing mixer – Steve Haynes Camera – Alan Wilson Film Editor – Barry Spink Executive Producer – John Willis Director/Producer - Peter Gordon YTV 1987