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- Dec 2, 2005
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The City of York may be Yorkshires ancient capital, Leeds its biggest city, and Sheffield was once its industrial heart, but arguably, there is nowhere in Yorkshire more Yorkshire than Barnsley. Once the quintessential Northern pit-town, Barnsley has sired more Professional Yorkshiremen than any other place in Gods Own County. These sons of Barnsley call a spade a spade, argue over which butcher sells the best black pudding, are conservative to the point of being bigots, and none of them either lives anywhere near Barnsley, or has been dahn tpit in a very long time.
Barnsley is a small town, surrounded by smaller villages, with names that could have been designed by Edward Lear, and only sound even more comical when pronounced in the thick accent, at which even other Yorkshiremen giggle and often fail to comprehend. In Yorkshire, people traditionally talk in a sort of Olde English way, thee and thou, for example, are still in standard use, if only in the roughened form of thee and tha.
When I was a schoolboy in Sheffield, we would sometimes go to play rugby against schools from the small towns and villages on the Sheffield side of Barnsley, where they would invariably have two tattooed coal-encrusted giants as the prop-forwards of the under-15s team. To our big city ears, the thick Barnsley accents sounded comical. For their part, the people of Barnsley refer to Sheffielders as dee-das because they say that they say dee and da instead of thee and tha. Since this is not actually true, it shows how poorly travelled, the people from this small town can be.
Barnsley was immortalised in Ken Loachs film Kes, the story of a young rascal who trains a kestrel. For some, this film really will be a look into another world, and they may wish it had subtitles. When I watched it recently I was surprised at how posh some of the supposed (and in many cases genuine) Barnsley accents were. I think they must have been toned down for the cinema since otherwise few outside Cudorth or South Elmsell would have understood a word that was being said.
Certainly the most amusing part of the film (one of the very few) is a scene where a vainglorious school PE (Physical Education) teacher takes to the football (soccer) field. The part is actually played brilliantly by Professional Yorkshireman Brian Glover, who is one of the characters in the An American Werewolf in London Slaughtered Lamb scene featured in my Otley Run Giveaway thread!
As coal-miners, the men-folk of Barnsley led a hard life, with many dying young with their health broken, but in the 1970s and early 1980s they earned good money, and the town was prosperous as a result. With the destruction of the British coal industry, many have led an even harder life since than they did as pit-men, whole communities and pit-villages have been devastated, and the coal-dust was replaced with the evil brown dust; heroin. A whole generation had to live without work since with the mines gone, there was nothing else, and the young turned to smack just as some of their fathers may have done; Barnsley was awash with it.
Barnsley is a poor town today, many of its old ways and traditions gone forever, but it is showing some small signs of recovery, at least compared to a decade ago, even if todays young man may think himself lucky to get a job in a call-centre or supermarket, rather than working at the coal-face next to his dad. The ambitious leave the town as soon as they are old enough.
One of the few things that hasnt changed massively in Barnsley is its market. The indoor market looks not unlike Sheffield market did in the 1960s, while the open-air market thrives like few others in the region. Tuesday is flea-market day, and I decided to go over to it in search of seax, and meet up there with an old pal from Sheffield; Scooby.
Ive known Scooby since we were both apprentices; me an apprentice mechanic, and he an apprentice electronics engineer at British Steels then-booming Sheffield Stocksbridge plant (where he once managed to accidentally dump more than a Million Pounds worth of steel by pressing the wrong button)! Scooby loves a rummage in a flea-market or car-boot sale a bit too much judging from his bulging garage the last time I visited him at home.
After meeting up with my old pal on a bitterly cold platform at Barnsley train station, we proceeded directly to the open-air flea-market. Winter is not the best time for such things obviously, there are generally fewer customers and fewer stalls, but still the market was bustling.
The first section of stalls certainly had a lot of junk on them, but it really was just junk, but to be fair, everything was very cheap. I rummaged through a few boxes hoping to spot something of interest and scanned the pitches with a knife-hungry eye. There was nothing to be seen though.
As we moved onto the next section of the market however, I immediately spotted a stall with a case in which there were a multitude of knives on display. This was exciting. A pleasant, chatty stall-holder allowed me to examine his wares, but even before he had opened the glass display case I realised that most of its contents werent worth further inspection. There were a lot of modern junk knives and Richards (of Sheffield) knives from the 70s and 80s, many of them miniatures. Closer examination of some of the other pointy fare revealed wobbly blades, imitation stag and bone handles, and stainless steel which carried no other mark than that. There was far less to the collection than at first met the eye, and they were all overpriced.
The stall-holder was not in the least put out that I was not interested in purchasing anything, and we chatted for a while about old Sheffield knives and such. Taking me for a local, he asked if I knew an old feller who bought a lot of items from him. I didnt at all, but it then occurred to me that there is perhaps a higher level of interest in old Sheffield pocket knives in South Yorkshire than there is might be elsewhere in the county, and higher prices may be one of the consequences. I started to think of Otley with a new appreciation, slightly.
After leaving the stall, Scooby remembered he had a present for me, and produced from his pocket, with a conjurors flourish, an object which had me baffled as to what it was. Normally, if I get a gift from Scooby its a small torch, a multi-tool, or some other useful and practical item. This object however was quite different. It consisted of rings of thin brass-wire, some ornamented with coloured beads, and all linked together, a bit like an old-fashioned hairnet. Scooby proceeded to demonstrate its apparent function, which I can only describe as some sort of fidgeting device. By manipulating the wire, it could be formed, and allowed to spring, into different shapes. It reminded me, oddly enough, of a Rubiks Cube, though with even less purpose. I dont consider myself to be entirely bereft of an artistic soul, but I tend to appreciate things in practical terms, and the point of what Ive temporarily christened The Scooby Thing is somewhat lost on me I have to say. Ill post a few pics below, and I would love to hear from anyone who knows what this is called, or even what it actually IS.
We returned to bargain-hunting and looked round more stalls. A slightly posh lady selling jewellery had a glass display case in which I spotted two silver Sheffield fruit knives, but she didnt seem to want to let me look at them. Perhaps noticing my agile gait, she thought I would sprint off with one of them! I asked if she knew who they were made by, she didnt, but oddly could tell me exactly which year each one was supposedly made. She also told me her asking price, which immediately caused me to lose complete interest, as it was, frankly, ridiculous.
After looking round a few more of the outdoor stalls, we decided to go into the indoor market, which was also busy. A long-established stall sold items of Yorkshire nostalgia, with a fantastic selection of old photographs on display. The proprietor was friendly and happy to chat about his wares and his interest in local history irrespective of any purchase being made.
A stall selling cast iron goods; hearth tools and ornaments, caught my interest. The prices were very reasonable and I purchased several items, including this flying-pig door-stop.
Going back outside to the flea-market, I spotted a stall selling horse-brasses and trivets, old coins, and a few old hand tools. In a guarded wooden box, I spotted a few old safety razors and a couple of old straights. The first straight razor was in a sorry state, and I quickly lost interest in it. Beside it was a box bearing the name Bismarck Razor. The stall-holder told me it contained a German razor. I gave it a cursory inspection, and when he dropped the price, I handed over a £10 note. When I inspected the razor later however, I found that it was an old Sheffield model, made by J.W Meeson & Son. The box belonged to a different razor altogether.
Leaving the market, we went to a small independent hardware store, which is often the source of bargains. They had some simple, sharp paring knives, priced at only 20p, but I have plenty of good kitchen knives. Along with a few other items, I bought a couple of Waiters Friends, for only 50p each (half a £ Sterling). Ive since seen the same model on sale in Leeds for £15 Barnsley folk arent mugs!
As I was standing at the till waiting to pay, an old woman came in and said, Have you any big spiders? Im not entirely sure what she was after, but completely dead-pan the woman behind the till replied, Not here, we havent, but weve got plenty at home, especially in the cellar. The joke was clearly lost on the prospective spider customer, and she pursued the purchase, but left happy enough without it, while I shared chuckles with the shop-staff.
Many English towns give their name to a food item, theres the York ham and the Eccles cake for example. Barnsley has a double pork chop named after it, but in these hard economic times, I doubt that they grace too many dinner tables. Scooby, who as the Yorkshire saying goes is not mean, hes careful, took me to a shop where they sold two meat pies or two sausage rolls for £1. I wasnt hungry, but Scooby shared a brace of pies with his dog, they looked pretty disgusting, even the dog didnt look impressed. Sausage rolls are a British institution, but they have absolute nothing in common with the great sausages of the world. Rather, they are some sort of greasy pink-grey substance encased in even greasier pastry. They are as popular in Barnsley as everywhere else in Britain though (inexplicably), I was once subjected to the riveting conversation of half a dozen Barnsley school-girls talking about nothing but sausage rolls for 45 minutes on a train journey from Leeds to Sheffield. I cannot say I was tempted to go and buy one.
We returned to the market for one last stab at finding some slipjoints. Passing the first stall I had been to, I noticed a new knife had been added to the display case. I also noticed a different bloke was now sitting behind it. Scooby whispered that he was a well-known rogue trader whod rob the dead, and I bore this in mind. The new knife was a stockman. The new trader told me it had pearl handles, they were clearly plastic. I had a quick look at it, the blades were stainless and blunt, and the only mark was stainless steel stamped on the tang of one of the blades. I handed the knife back.
As the afternoon wore on, the temperature dropped still further, and it was getting a bit parky, so we decided to call it a day and go our separate ways. I returned to Leeds with no more slipjoints than the one I set out with (not counting the small blades on the Waiters Friends), but Id got a few things of interest, and when (if) the warmer weather comes next year, I might hazard another trip over to Barnsley town.
It was only on the train home that I realised Id forgotten to buy a bottle or two of Hendersons Relish, the Sheffield-made condiment which these days is perhaps the only black stuff South Yorkshire produces.
Barnsley is a small town, surrounded by smaller villages, with names that could have been designed by Edward Lear, and only sound even more comical when pronounced in the thick accent, at which even other Yorkshiremen giggle and often fail to comprehend. In Yorkshire, people traditionally talk in a sort of Olde English way, thee and thou, for example, are still in standard use, if only in the roughened form of thee and tha.
When I was a schoolboy in Sheffield, we would sometimes go to play rugby against schools from the small towns and villages on the Sheffield side of Barnsley, where they would invariably have two tattooed coal-encrusted giants as the prop-forwards of the under-15s team. To our big city ears, the thick Barnsley accents sounded comical. For their part, the people of Barnsley refer to Sheffielders as dee-das because they say that they say dee and da instead of thee and tha. Since this is not actually true, it shows how poorly travelled, the people from this small town can be.
Barnsley was immortalised in Ken Loachs film Kes, the story of a young rascal who trains a kestrel. For some, this film really will be a look into another world, and they may wish it had subtitles. When I watched it recently I was surprised at how posh some of the supposed (and in many cases genuine) Barnsley accents were. I think they must have been toned down for the cinema since otherwise few outside Cudorth or South Elmsell would have understood a word that was being said.
Certainly the most amusing part of the film (one of the very few) is a scene where a vainglorious school PE (Physical Education) teacher takes to the football (soccer) field. The part is actually played brilliantly by Professional Yorkshireman Brian Glover, who is one of the characters in the An American Werewolf in London Slaughtered Lamb scene featured in my Otley Run Giveaway thread!
As coal-miners, the men-folk of Barnsley led a hard life, with many dying young with their health broken, but in the 1970s and early 1980s they earned good money, and the town was prosperous as a result. With the destruction of the British coal industry, many have led an even harder life since than they did as pit-men, whole communities and pit-villages have been devastated, and the coal-dust was replaced with the evil brown dust; heroin. A whole generation had to live without work since with the mines gone, there was nothing else, and the young turned to smack just as some of their fathers may have done; Barnsley was awash with it.
Barnsley is a poor town today, many of its old ways and traditions gone forever, but it is showing some small signs of recovery, at least compared to a decade ago, even if todays young man may think himself lucky to get a job in a call-centre or supermarket, rather than working at the coal-face next to his dad. The ambitious leave the town as soon as they are old enough.
One of the few things that hasnt changed massively in Barnsley is its market. The indoor market looks not unlike Sheffield market did in the 1960s, while the open-air market thrives like few others in the region. Tuesday is flea-market day, and I decided to go over to it in search of seax, and meet up there with an old pal from Sheffield; Scooby.
Ive known Scooby since we were both apprentices; me an apprentice mechanic, and he an apprentice electronics engineer at British Steels then-booming Sheffield Stocksbridge plant (where he once managed to accidentally dump more than a Million Pounds worth of steel by pressing the wrong button)! Scooby loves a rummage in a flea-market or car-boot sale a bit too much judging from his bulging garage the last time I visited him at home.
After meeting up with my old pal on a bitterly cold platform at Barnsley train station, we proceeded directly to the open-air flea-market. Winter is not the best time for such things obviously, there are generally fewer customers and fewer stalls, but still the market was bustling.
The first section of stalls certainly had a lot of junk on them, but it really was just junk, but to be fair, everything was very cheap. I rummaged through a few boxes hoping to spot something of interest and scanned the pitches with a knife-hungry eye. There was nothing to be seen though.
As we moved onto the next section of the market however, I immediately spotted a stall with a case in which there were a multitude of knives on display. This was exciting. A pleasant, chatty stall-holder allowed me to examine his wares, but even before he had opened the glass display case I realised that most of its contents werent worth further inspection. There were a lot of modern junk knives and Richards (of Sheffield) knives from the 70s and 80s, many of them miniatures. Closer examination of some of the other pointy fare revealed wobbly blades, imitation stag and bone handles, and stainless steel which carried no other mark than that. There was far less to the collection than at first met the eye, and they were all overpriced.
The stall-holder was not in the least put out that I was not interested in purchasing anything, and we chatted for a while about old Sheffield knives and such. Taking me for a local, he asked if I knew an old feller who bought a lot of items from him. I didnt at all, but it then occurred to me that there is perhaps a higher level of interest in old Sheffield pocket knives in South Yorkshire than there is might be elsewhere in the county, and higher prices may be one of the consequences. I started to think of Otley with a new appreciation, slightly.
After leaving the stall, Scooby remembered he had a present for me, and produced from his pocket, with a conjurors flourish, an object which had me baffled as to what it was. Normally, if I get a gift from Scooby its a small torch, a multi-tool, or some other useful and practical item. This object however was quite different. It consisted of rings of thin brass-wire, some ornamented with coloured beads, and all linked together, a bit like an old-fashioned hairnet. Scooby proceeded to demonstrate its apparent function, which I can only describe as some sort of fidgeting device. By manipulating the wire, it could be formed, and allowed to spring, into different shapes. It reminded me, oddly enough, of a Rubiks Cube, though with even less purpose. I dont consider myself to be entirely bereft of an artistic soul, but I tend to appreciate things in practical terms, and the point of what Ive temporarily christened The Scooby Thing is somewhat lost on me I have to say. Ill post a few pics below, and I would love to hear from anyone who knows what this is called, or even what it actually IS.
We returned to bargain-hunting and looked round more stalls. A slightly posh lady selling jewellery had a glass display case in which I spotted two silver Sheffield fruit knives, but she didnt seem to want to let me look at them. Perhaps noticing my agile gait, she thought I would sprint off with one of them! I asked if she knew who they were made by, she didnt, but oddly could tell me exactly which year each one was supposedly made. She also told me her asking price, which immediately caused me to lose complete interest, as it was, frankly, ridiculous.
After looking round a few more of the outdoor stalls, we decided to go into the indoor market, which was also busy. A long-established stall sold items of Yorkshire nostalgia, with a fantastic selection of old photographs on display. The proprietor was friendly and happy to chat about his wares and his interest in local history irrespective of any purchase being made.
A stall selling cast iron goods; hearth tools and ornaments, caught my interest. The prices were very reasonable and I purchased several items, including this flying-pig door-stop.
Going back outside to the flea-market, I spotted a stall selling horse-brasses and trivets, old coins, and a few old hand tools. In a guarded wooden box, I spotted a few old safety razors and a couple of old straights. The first straight razor was in a sorry state, and I quickly lost interest in it. Beside it was a box bearing the name Bismarck Razor. The stall-holder told me it contained a German razor. I gave it a cursory inspection, and when he dropped the price, I handed over a £10 note. When I inspected the razor later however, I found that it was an old Sheffield model, made by J.W Meeson & Son. The box belonged to a different razor altogether.
Leaving the market, we went to a small independent hardware store, which is often the source of bargains. They had some simple, sharp paring knives, priced at only 20p, but I have plenty of good kitchen knives. Along with a few other items, I bought a couple of Waiters Friends, for only 50p each (half a £ Sterling). Ive since seen the same model on sale in Leeds for £15 Barnsley folk arent mugs!
As I was standing at the till waiting to pay, an old woman came in and said, Have you any big spiders? Im not entirely sure what she was after, but completely dead-pan the woman behind the till replied, Not here, we havent, but weve got plenty at home, especially in the cellar. The joke was clearly lost on the prospective spider customer, and she pursued the purchase, but left happy enough without it, while I shared chuckles with the shop-staff.
Many English towns give their name to a food item, theres the York ham and the Eccles cake for example. Barnsley has a double pork chop named after it, but in these hard economic times, I doubt that they grace too many dinner tables. Scooby, who as the Yorkshire saying goes is not mean, hes careful, took me to a shop where they sold two meat pies or two sausage rolls for £1. I wasnt hungry, but Scooby shared a brace of pies with his dog, they looked pretty disgusting, even the dog didnt look impressed. Sausage rolls are a British institution, but they have absolute nothing in common with the great sausages of the world. Rather, they are some sort of greasy pink-grey substance encased in even greasier pastry. They are as popular in Barnsley as everywhere else in Britain though (inexplicably), I was once subjected to the riveting conversation of half a dozen Barnsley school-girls talking about nothing but sausage rolls for 45 minutes on a train journey from Leeds to Sheffield. I cannot say I was tempted to go and buy one.
We returned to the market for one last stab at finding some slipjoints. Passing the first stall I had been to, I noticed a new knife had been added to the display case. I also noticed a different bloke was now sitting behind it. Scooby whispered that he was a well-known rogue trader whod rob the dead, and I bore this in mind. The new knife was a stockman. The new trader told me it had pearl handles, they were clearly plastic. I had a quick look at it, the blades were stainless and blunt, and the only mark was stainless steel stamped on the tang of one of the blades. I handed the knife back.
As the afternoon wore on, the temperature dropped still further, and it was getting a bit parky, so we decided to call it a day and go our separate ways. I returned to Leeds with no more slipjoints than the one I set out with (not counting the small blades on the Waiters Friends), but Id got a few things of interest, and when (if) the warmer weather comes next year, I might hazard another trip over to Barnsley town.
It was only on the train home that I realised Id forgotten to buy a bottle or two of Hendersons Relish, the Sheffield-made condiment which these days is perhaps the only black stuff South Yorkshire produces.
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