If you weren’t around in 1980, let me tell you that the social climate in Sheffield was as bleak as a Boney M single.
Decimation of the mainstay industry - the steelworks - coupled with soaring youth unemployment, gave rise to slogans such as no future no hope for the majority of youngsters. An unlikely spark of hope was struck in a derelict flour mill in a run down part of the city (part of the building housed the legendary Esquire club, where during the Sixties The Who, Jimi Hendrix the Small Faces and others played on a stage made from 2 grand pianos with their legs sawn off). A ragbag of volunteers, students, artists and unemployed, many insane but likeable, came together with a vision of setting up a centre for the arts and music for people like themselves who had nowhere to go. The official line was....