Real Barnsley (The REAL series) - Softcover

Ian McMillan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1781724113 ISBN 13: 9781781724118

Publisher: Seren, 2017

Synopsis

Join poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan as he looks into the past of his native Barnsley, exploring its history and recalling his own experiences of this particular patch of South Yorkshire. Barnsley mentioned in the Domesday Book developed incrementally into an important commercial and cultural centre, home to cinemas, theatres, civic life and Barnsley FC, McMillan's beloved Tykes. Appropriately, the home of an ancient glass industry was also the site of Britain s first bottlebank.

Real Barnsley also tours the surrounding villages and small towns so important to local identity. Penistone, Hoyland Common, Wombwell, Cawthorne, Royston, Carlton, Cudworth, Grimesthorpe and McMillan's own Darfield are all on his itinerary. Some were mining villages, products of the seventy collieries within a 15 mile radius of Barnsley, all now closed. Others are rural market towns, on the edge of the Pennines. As McMillan discovers the tide of industry has gone out but the heritage tide has flowed, with the establishment of the Elsecar Heritage Centre at an old ironworks, and 'The Maurice Dobson Museum and Heritage Centre', at which the author volunteers. And there are always the moors, to which workers have escaped from factories and pits, where the film Kes was shot.

McMillan's Barnsley is nothing if not an eclectic mix, home to brass bands and the Barnsley Chop but the Arctic Monkeys, Saxon and Kate Rusby. It is also home to Michael Parkinson, Dicky Bird, sculptor Graham Ibbeson, Lord Halifax, Ebenezer Elliott, poet, and the highwayman Swift Nick. And plenty of colourful locals including McMillan himself: Real Barnsley is his shared story.

About this title

About the Author:

Ian McMillan is a poet, journalist, playwright, and broadcaster, known for his strong and distinctive Barnsley-area accent. He lives in Darfield, the town of his birth. He began performing on the live poetry circuit in the 1970s and has published several volumes of poetry, for adults and children. McMillan has had journalism published in Q magazine and Mojo, and writes a weekly column for The Barnsley Chronicle. He is also 'poet in residence' to Barnsley FC and is known as the 'Bard of Barnsley'. His play Sister Josephine Kicks the Habit premiered in 2005. In 2010 McMillan was appointed poet-in-residence at the English National Opera.

McMillan hosts the The Verb and Proms variation Adverb on BBC Radio 3, "dedicated to investigating spoken words around the globe". He is a roving contributor to the 'Today Programme', and has also been a panellist on Just A Minute and was a castaway on Desert Island Discs.

About this edition

• Publisher: Seren
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1781724113
• ISBN 13: 9781781724118
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240