News Archive
Posted 08/4/13
BSGTTS on the move again!
Once again the society found itself searching for a new home following an enormous increase in room cost demanded by the Ramada Encore, Dodworth home to the society for the past year.
After extensive searching the Annual General Meeting went ahead in February in a temporary meeting room at the Dale Tavern in Worsbrough. A further two venues were considered but the society has chosen a room offered by The Fairway just up the road from our previous venue at Dodworth for future meetings.
Reporting from the AGM, all the current officials were installed for a further year of service without change.
The next meeting is at The Fairway, Elmhirst Lane, Dodworth, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S75 4LS where
Barnsley's own Mel Dyke has chosen "A Name Droppers Guide to Barnsley" as her topic.
Mel Dyke was born in Barnsley and has two children and five grandchildren. Mel has worked as a bank clerk, barmaid and teacher (all ages from infants to post graduates in many different schools and Universities).
Mel is currently a link teacher in schools across Yorkshire and a Lecturer for the University of Leeds.
They Closed Our Pit: The Grimethorpe Experience Then and Now.
by Mel Dyke.
Book review:
1992 was the year Her Majesty The Queen referred to as an annus horribilis. It wasn't that good a year for Grimethorpe either with the Government's announcement that 31 coal mines would close. Although a minor technicality, the failure to conduct the statutory "consultation period" of 90 days meant that the actual closure date had to be postponed until the start of 1993.
So January of that year was not only the end of those 31 pits but also the way of life in the traditional communities they supported. Ironically it was also the year that the Grimethorpe Colliery Band won the World Brass Band Championship with a superb score of 99 marks out of a possible 100. "Brassed Off" told that story and the Band survived despite the cuts but the 99 year old Grimethorpe pit did not.
A Barnsley miner's daughter, Mel Dyke had worked in schools and colleges in the coalfields since the 1960s often using mining themes to raise aspiration and forging links through the support of local role models. She was Deputy Head in Grimethorpe's Willowgarth High School when the announcement came. Determined not simply to wait for predictable and drastic affect closure would have she spearheaded a creative counter movement. Combining her own previous experiences with work already begun in the school in 1984 by Head of English Max Bristowe, she sought nationwide support. No-one could have foreseen the range of responses to the gloriously positive fight put up by that little community, from Westminster to Buckingham and Lambeth Palaces and even an artichoke field in France! Here she provides that unique archive, letters and interviews, TV radio and press reports, MPs, academics and celebrity support, messages of goodwill inspiring children's writings and activities across the curriculum. Twenty years on the left, right and centre views of some of those involved are re-visited to bring together the finer elements of past, present and future.
Mel's other books include 'All for Barnsley' and 'Barnsley and Beyond'.
