Things I liked about Barnsley that have gone

The map at the bottom of Shambles Street on which you could press a button and a light would come on telling you where that thing was (like the post office or whatever). Or, in its later days, didn't come on.

The old stable nativity scene they had in front of the town hall at Christmas.

The roundabout in the market.

Ray Allan's eternal closing down sale. I suppose they were right eventually.

The sweet shop at the top of regent street that sold all those different sweets in jars.

The bakery at the bottom of the arcade with the gingerbread men in the window.

The cafe on Eldon Street with the fake leather orange seats, and the one at the bottom of back Regent Street that did meals for kids called stuff like 'Cowboys Nosh-up' and the cafe in BHS.

The pie and peas place in the market.

The market being good and being able to buy absolutely owt.

Casa Disco and EGS.

The Civic being a proper massive theatre. The Who played there and The Kinks.

Globe Theatre.

Town end before the roundabout and it was just mental.

Japanese Whispers.

Barnsley baths.

The Alabama Alligator, Old Pavillion, Wheatsheaf, Gardeners and Vine.

Having a department store (old Co-op) or two if you count BHS.

Shops being shops. Not card shops or pound shops or charity shops but proper shops that specialised in stuff you wanted to buy.

John Brittons

The Odeon cinema when it was massive, before they split it in to two screens and you could watch the film from upstairs.

All buses being red, all fairs being 2p anywhere in South Yorkshire and bus conductors that came round with the machine. Not ticket inspectors though, the b'stards.

 

Few of those made me smile.

 

Wagon Wheels at the club shop.

Barnsley Boys Club.

Our MP, Roy Mason being followed by 2 bodyguards, in case the IRA bumped him off.

Miners Gala in Locke Park.

Being able to swap ends of the ground at half time.

 

I agree with all of those, plus

The BFC club shop "hatch"

And finally, a personal one.

Thanks to the bloke that painted "Kev Trent D'Arby" on a wall the corner of Racecommon Road/Shaw Lane that I passed every day for years (and laughed)

 

Oh, and Woolworths...

 

It was 2p or 4p from Hoyland into Barnsley, depending which stop you got on. Then they put it up to 15p in one go causing outrage!! It was 6p into Sheffield on the 271 from Hoyland, but only 4p on the 265 from Hoyland Common.

 

Looking at the NCB - British Coal Donkey Jackets dotted around the ground

Collieries

The bit of Barnsley obilterated by that stupid bypass

 

Mayor's parade

Sugg Sports and the one opposite the library (Midland Sports?) - where you could actually buy sports equipment, not just leisure-wear (a la JD Sports)

Rebecca's night club

The first ever chinese take-away on Racecomon Road in the early 80s

The jewellery store (Benn's, or Benjamin's?) on Eldon Street - it was like something out of "Are you being served?"

Edit: some of those things may still exist, but I doubt it.

 

Midwood Sports
Butterfields pub
Don Valley Sports
The pubs on Wakey Road (Sportsman Woodman etc)
Panama Joes
Jap Whispers fountain

 

The computer game shop (can't recall the name) that was in the unit between Esmeralda's and Brown's pawnbrokers. Used to let you try before you buy.
The video game arcade that used to be near the cinema.
Fosters and Hagenbachs were better than Greggs - in my memory at any rate
Huddersfield Road college, just doesn't seem right how it is now
SR Gents - **** wage but great place to work

 

All those and......

The Bobby in the white coat and helmet who stood at the bottom of New Street, under a powerful light when it was dark, directing all the traffic. He must have been absolutely screwed by the end of his shift.

When the pedestrian precinct was full of traffic.

Open backed double deckers.

The train running over the top of the old bus station on its way into Barnsley Courthouse station.

The glittery floors in Woolies and those powerful black herbal sweets they sold out of a glass tower for a tanner a quarter.

The old open air market and that old lass with a voice that I swear could shatter glass when she was shouting the odds.

That massive glossy blue and black pub at the bottom of New Street - I think it was The Duke of York

Burlington Cafe opposite where the Mermaid Chippie stands

Benji Harralls

That big board that used to be where the corner of Kendray Street comes round off Eldon Street that used to tell you how many road casualties there had been in Barnsley that month, that never seemed to be updated.

The Wine Shades Pub

Butterfields, and of course Joe Edwards

 

It was called Micro Fun mate. I used to work there on Saturday and after school. Main task loading games for you lot to try(play on for free) and sorting the head alignment on C64 and spectrum tape decks. I worked in Casa disco too. Best shops in town them two !

The footpath outside micro fun used to be quite narrow so we used to glue
Pound coins to the path knowing that no one would fail to see it and try and pick it up. The number of school
Kids we got with that trick was great. Once we caused a three kingstoner pile up !!

 

Properly laughing.

I'd forgotten about Micro Fun. Brilliant shop.

Couple more I'd forgotten:

Doing the hill start on your driving test at the top of York Street like everyone else before you.

That shop near the New Tech, I think it was called New Design, that sold them silver balls on strings that clacked against each other, little puzzles in perspex cubes and seemingly nowt else.
"Can we have one mum, please, please, please can we have one?"
"No."

 

Raynor's pie shop and café at the bottom of the Arcade, all Albert Hirst's shops, especially the one at the bottom of New Street where you could buy a pork pie and stand outside eating it while the gravy ran up to your elbow and watching the bobby with the tash on point duty, the Co-op toy department, the Bailey's neon sign with the stork on it (now in Elsecar Heritage Centre), the old Library and the insane museum on the top floor full of fascinating unco-ordinated junk, the Gas Nook and Oldfields' Dining Car, Brimelow's Herbal Remedy stall in the market, where you could get a consultation in a little wooden shed if you couldn't afford the tanner for the doctor, Tom Garner's motorbike shop with the fabulous smell of oil, petrol, paint and workshop, Bookworm's Paradise, Reynolds & Wadsworth's tool shop, the Bus Station café with the steam trains rumbling overhead into Court House Station, the East Stand Bogs awash with piss just before kick off........... Could go on forever. Nostalgia's not what it was.

 

Oh such beautiful things.

The 'rag and louse' (as my nan used to call it) Tuesday market when it actually sold collectibles and ecords and books rather than the contents of a junkies wardrobe.

The 2nd hand record shop upstairs in the market possibly called Shirley's after the grumpy old witch who would sit there scowling and refusing to knock 10 pence off a 2nd hand madness single.

Andy's records.

LP buses or the more grandly titled Larry Pepper coaches to give them their Sunday name. Posher than Yorkshire Traction.

That little book shop up near the post office where you could always get the Observers Book of Birds/whatever your latest interest was.

Frothy coffee from the cafe in the old bus stop where the machine sounded like a space shuttle launch as it frothed your coffee

Giant badges at oakwell with images of our latest superstars on them I still have Glynn Riley, Derek Bell, Ian Evans, Alan Little and Ray McHale and 2 players that I don't recognise. My Ronnie Glavin was robbed I when is lived in London.

John Dennis being our chairman.

Huddersfield Road 6th Form.

 

The coop till system where they used so put your money in a cylinder and put it on the wire system that sent it to some central cash place. Then the plastic money you got in your change.


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The old threepenny bit in the bus station where everyone used to meet
Anyone remember the big stuffed whale on display in town in think in the 60s
I remember being in the sea cadets and being in the bugle band the instructor got us a slot playing at oakwell at half time it was like playing on a ploughed field. Thought we were the bees knees. We must have sounded s**te. Maybe 1970

 

For some unknown reason mine all relate to pubs..........

Closing of Dollys and the Old Dev and these being turned into chip shops...........Old Dev was a big loss because that is where I used to go before and after the match.

The Theatre............with its impressive stuffed lion and tiger

Chicago Rock closing...........and the decline in the atmosphere in pubs along Wellington Street

The steady decline in nice clothes and glamour during the daytime but especially around the pubs at night........the acceptance that you can wear almost anything to walk around town - even in the pubs at night......even trainers, tracky bottoms and an anorak..........that is to say; the HUGE increase in the number of Ming Mongs

Bimbo's at Christmas..........and the steady decline in the atmosphere on Mad Friday

 

This gentleman.....Bill Harber the Policeman........better at directing traffic than any set of trafffic lights.

As a kid i was mesmerised by his control of the traffic at bottom of Peel Square (pedestrianised now).

http://www.barnsleyandfamily.com/barnsleymoreoldphotos.htm