South Yorkshire Times – Friday 25 November 1932

Wombwell in the Cold Grey Hour

Have you ever been on the street in the cold grey hour just before eight in the morning? If not you have missed the light and shade of Wombwell.

The town at that hour is just waking up. There is much going and coming, rushing for buses and trams. The milk arrives and the men who take it are busy with their barrows. The newspapers have been in the town some hours and the boys are getting them out. The postmen are on their rounds and impatient rat-a-tats are heard in side streets. Workmen with half-washed, Monday morning look are off to their jobs, and schoolboys stand in shiny-faced rows where the buses stop, stamping their feet and blowinng their nails.

It is cold in November before the sun gets up!

Shrinking from the light, cats slink into shop doors. Presently you see a policeman walk up to a metal box near the Yorkshire Penny Bank at the bottom of Church Street. He turns a switch, sets the robots a-twinkling, and another day has officially commenced