The 1950s were a period of consolidation after the upsets of the war years, and the continuing staff shortages up to the end of the 1940s. The staff shortages in the Sheffield child guidance clinic and school psychological service proved to be no exception. An advertised post for a senior psychologist in 1954 failed to attract any suitable applicants, and instead a newly qualified psychologist, Peter Portwood, was appointed as assistant psychologist. Portwood remained in the service until 1959 when he moved to Cornwall to become the senior psychologist there, and eventually Principal Educational Psychologist, taking up some important posts in the BPS Division of Education and Child Psychology. Portwood died in 2005. This article, written in the 1990s, presents Portwood's account of the Sheffield Service from 1954 to 1959.