I can't stop watching this video....

from 1951 Bank End related. I spotted me granma in it (2.47minutes wit best spotted dress and pinny on). I was blown away when I saw her.. and a bit misty eyed anawl. Look at them kid's faces and remind me that we've got it better these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNOlZVDuH7M

 

Am gerrin a French film missen like.

 

What strikes me most about that is that despite what must have been considerably less prosperous times, everybody looks so happy. I suppose they had put six years between them and the War?

 

I really enjoyed that. All my family are from Bank End(Yews Av.) but didn't recognise anyone on first viewing. Was it on the school playing fields?

 

A couple of years before I was born but in my time when i was growing up in the 50's and 60's life seemed so much simpler, less technology around so we made our own amusement, we didn't get a tv until the early 60's, so yes I guess we were on average much happier in those times. MacMillan said the 50's were the best of times when we never had it so good, and I guess he was right as far as happiness is concerned. Material things count for zilch if you cant find happiness.

I loved the song, the Barnsley lass...

 

Cod-Eye, those fields were just down the hill from the Yews pub. There was a community hall there and then the fields. Keep going accross the field and you get to the Swaithe Club and then down through Monksprings to White Cross. So it was in the middle of the streets behind the Yews. You can see fields to one side and that was the fields heading towards Kendray. The kids always fought over the fields (tribal, like) You can see the asbestos 'Pre-fabs' which were still around til the late sixties.

You'd be hard pressed to recognise anybody as it was sixtyfive years ago. I'm no chicken, like, and me granma was just like that when she looked after me in the late fifties early sixties.

I know one older guy was Dougie Stables. He wouldha organised this event. He had the Swaithe Club and ran football and cricket and kids teams and athletics, it seems. He was like the main community leader in the sixties..

If you've got seventy year old relatives from Bank End then they'd love this.

 

I lived in the prefabs at 20 maltas crescent before we moved to underwood ave. I also remember Douggie Stables when I was a member of swaithe club. Great area when I was a kid.

 

Without question they do. And maybe they were. I hope so.

The biggest difference between now and back then is that if you point a video camera, or a smart phone with video capabilities or a tablet or whatever device you have, at some kids at an athletics meet or a school gala or some such this summer, those children will have seen that 1,000 times and more. Their whole lives have been recorded. They're not going to line up and smile for you as it's nothing special, it happens all the time.

In all likelihood everyone you see on that film is looking at the first movie camera they have ever seen. No one has ever filmed them before. This is bloody special and if someone tells them to laugh and smile that's what they're damn well going to do. I was born 20 years after this film was shot, but there's no film/video footage of me as a kid because back in the 70s such gadgets were still very rare, particularly on a Barnsley council estate.

None of that means these people weren't happy, but we're definitely getting a performance that it's difficult to achieve these days because everyone is so blasé about being filmed, or down right hostile towards it.

 

Ive heard the stories of the Bank End/Kendry scraps that used to go on down there. Especially as my Mam was from Bank End and Dad from Kendry.

I was looking for my Grandparents/Uncles(have 4 uncles who will have been living down that way in the 50's. I know of Dougie too(my Grandad used to drum in the Swaithe club and he sued to tell me about all the characters).

Wish the Yews was still there too. I never went in drinking when it was in its prime, but my Nannan was bar maid in there for years and years and everyone i speak to about it talks lke it was one of the best locals around.

Ive shared the video on Facebook so all my Uncles and Aunties can have a look. They will love it.

I might have to have a drive down bank End and Worsborough. Not been for a fair few years now and will be interesting to see how its changed...

 

It was a great summer that year, and we all got brown as berries. No need for a trip to Majorca or Tenerife.

 

Loved the film. Big surprise at the end - there was my mate Johnny Winrow. Haven't seen him since about 1957. A gang of us used to play a lot of football and cricket on the field behind Cliffedale Crescent. Good days. We had nowt but made our own entertainment. Thanks for the film.

 

Great that mate, thanks for posting...

 

I'll come with you cod, not been up there in ages.

 

And no trouble or swearing, because your parents would have give you a scutch round earhole

 

Your on, marra!

 

Perhaps we should put Barnsley Lass on playlist at Oakwell !!!!

 

Have a look at this one.

About 55 seconds in, the man standing right in front of Comedian Tommy Trinder who turns and faces the camera is my dad. It was filmed in Foggia in 1945, he was serving in the RAF. He volunteered in 1942 despite being a miner and thus exempt from conscription. After the war he went back down the pit at Hickleton and later at Highgate, retiring in 1980. He was a lifelong Reds supporter and rarely missed a home game.

He was Gordon Armstrong from Thurnscoe and died in 2004, his ashes were scattered on the pitch behind the goal line in front of the Ponty. We also bought him a brick on the wall of the Ponty.

It would be nice to hear from anyone who remembers him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6h3kkNlGP0