​Ernest was born on the 3rd December 1924 to Ernest snr and Myra and for a short while lived in the Walkley area. Shortly afterwards, the family moved to Warminster Rd and then to Derbyshire Lane.

He went to school in Derbyshire Lane and would often practice his cricket in Graves park, when not helping out in his uncles fruit and veg shop in Derbyshire Lane. He went on to captain the school cricket team and was picked to play for Sheffield Boys, where he played for two seasons, during which time they were the runners up in the Yorkshire final.

Later he had cricket coaching at Bramhall Lane and on Thursdays would play cricket with the Sheffield United football team players. He also turned out for the “Suggs” team.

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​His first job, which he hated!, was with the ‘Maypole’ grocery store, where he worked a sixty hour week for 12/6d. I guess that it was the Darnall branch in Staniforth Road, as at lunchtime he would run around to the Ball Inn on Main Road, to practice the piano. He had started to have piano lessons aged eleven and little did he know that his daily visits to the Ball Inn would shape the rest of his life.

One lunchtime whilst practicing, a visitor heard him playing. The visitor was a variety artiste by the name of Percy Pride who was touring with a concert party headed by Morris and Cowley, a nationally known double act at the time. Ernest, then aged 14/15, was subsequently offered a job with the show and for the next few years, went on to play at theatres throughout Britain and on radio.



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Around 1943 (I can’t be certain) Ernest started his National Service. After he had completed his basic training, he was summoned to see his Commanding Officer (apparently a rather unusual event). The C/O had learned that Ernest was a talented musician and made him an offer. If he wished, his choice, he was happy to release him to either join the military band or to join ENSA.  (The Entertainments National Service Association or ENSA was an organisation set up in 1939  to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during W.W.2.).  After some thought and chatting with band members, he chose the military band, a decision which he later described as one of the best of his life.





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He married Eva (nee Kelford) in June 1948 and supplemented his income by playing in pubs in the evenings. Two of which were ‘The Cock Inn” at Oughtibridge and Rotherham House (old no. 12), Exchange Street. It was whilst he was playing at the Rotherham House that a double act came to gig one night. The two guys named Roy Fields and Ernie Robinson asked Ernest to join them and form a trio. They worked well together as a three piece vocal harmony group, playing clubs and even played the Sheffield Empire. They passed an audition to appear on TV’s six-five special but an unfortunate accident befell Ernie Robinson, who fell off a scaffold. He was hospitalised for 12 months and sadly, the group disbanded.

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Ernest then went on to become resident pianist at Midhill WMC on East Bank Road prior to being invited to take the full time position of pianist/ then organist at Bellhouse Road WMC, where he would spend the next thirty-two years, eventually being forced to retire through ill health.

His drawing and painting then became his passion, although arthritis and then blindness put paid to this some years later. Ernest passed away in the Northern General Hospital at midnight on Christmas Eve 2006 with his beloved Eva, his sons and other family members at his bedside.