'I lost my job at a Sheffield tailors, because someone had bombed the shop'

It had been just like any other Sheffield tailors shop.

But when May Stabler turned up for work at the shop, on The Moor, she discovered she was out of a job - because it had been bombed.

May was among the many people whose lives were turned upside town in the Sheffield Blitz in December 1940, at the age of 16.

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Now aged 100, she has just celebrated her milestione birthday with friends and relatives at a party at The Commercial pub in Chapeltown.

The story of how she lost her job during the war is one of many she has shared with her family over the years, with the great grandmother and Sheffield Wednesday fan having lived through World War Two in the city.

At the age of 18, she joined the wartime Auxiliary Fire Service, with which she was based at Elm Lane during the war. She also tells how she sheltered from bombs in the basement of St Patrick’s Catholic Church at Sheffield Lane Top during an air raid after being caught in the open when it started, and how the priest offered round tots of whiskey to help people through.

May said she used to pick up supplies and collect payments at the tailors, and had gone straight to work after the air raids on the day she discovered the premises had been affected.

From there, she went onto work at the William Jessops steel firm in Brightside, near where she lived with her grandparents. Her grandfather already worked for the big steel company.

She remained there until after the war, when she got a job with the Department of Work and Pensions, where she met Charles Stabler, an Eighth Army veteran who had served at El Alamein and Tobruk, who would become her husband when the married in 1956.

Originally from the North East, when he first came to Sheffield Charles used to watch both Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. But dyed-in-the-wool Owls fan May put a stop to that, insisting he went only to Hillsborough.

“Mum put a stop to that,” laughed son John.

Sadly, Charles died 1n 1972. But May kept busy, raising John and his sisters Susan and Anne in their family home in Bevan Way, Chapeltown.

Until around 2010, she was doing the books for High Green Working Men’s Club. She has been a bingo devotee, and was a regular at the bingo in Wadsley Bridge until she had to stop because of lockdown.

She survived a cancer scare in her 80s, and is now living at Hill Top Lodge, Chapeltown, where she loves reading detective stories and novels set in wartime.

John said: “She’s just great - she just gets on with every day and she’s got a great, dry sense of humour.”

As well as her children, May now has six grandchildren, and 10 great grandchildren.

She celebrated her big day at The Commercial on April 7.