HERE’S a selection of stories as they were reported in the Chronicle this week back in 1993.

YET another body blow has been dealt to Barnsley with the announcement of the closure of British Coal’s central workshops at Shafton and the loss of 177 jobs.

Redundancies will take effect immediately, with 50 jobs going today, 50 next week and the rest at the discretion of British Coal depending on the amount of work available.

The remaining workforce will be wound down, and the plant will finally close on August 27.

British Coal states that the closure has become inevitable due to the rundown of the mining industry which has seen the 123 working pit faces last year reduced to 60 today.

As less heavy duty equipment is in operation the demand for repairs and service has been reduced dramatically.

Barnsley councillor Steve Houghton, a union branch official at the workshops, which employs skilled craftsmen, said: “The closure is an inevitable consequence of government policy. There is very little work available.

“We have agreed enhanced voluntary redundancy terms with British Coal on the basis that they will say who goes and when.”

BARNSLEY could become a major centre for ‘telecommuting’, the latest trend in working practices where people operate computers and fax machines where they live instead of miles away at head office, according to an entrant in the Barnsley 2000 competition.

Jane Giles, of High Street, Dodworth, believes Barnsley’s relatively cheap cost of living could be used as a means to encourage outside firms to contract out data processing to local people.

Mrs Giles is the latest entrant in the competition aimed at finding the most realistic, practical and local ideas for building a new Barnsley for the 21st century.

Total prize money of £1,200 is on offer for the best three ideas or proposals likely to lead to all sections of the community benefiting from an increase in prosperity.

A DONATION from TV star Michael Parkinson and the proceeds of a coffee morning organised by two eight-year-old schoolgirls represent both ends of the spectrum in latest efforts for the Barnsley Hospice Appeal.

Former Barnsley man Michael Parkinson and his wife Mary sent £100 in response to an appeal by officials for people to buy bricks for the new hospice.

The two little girls are Victoria Parker and Samantha McHale, of Hoylandswaine, who raised £34 by holding a coffee morning at Victoria’s home.

LECTURERS at Barnsley College have threatened an all-out strike unless management calls a halt to what they say are attempts to try to destroy legitimate trade union activity.

Members of Natfhe, the university and college lecturers’ union, voted in favour of strike action ‘if the corporation continues with its punitive response to legitimate trade union action’.

The union says the dispute is the result of the College Employers’ Forum (CEF), which now represents further education colleges nationally, being unwilling to discuss pay and conditions without the union agreeing to greatly worsened conditions of service.

A HUMBLE hospital truck is to take on a new role as children’s favourite, Thomas the Tank Engine, at Kendray Hospital’s summer fair.

The electrically-powered truck, normally used to transport heavy items such as furniture, clinical waste and bed linen, has been been converted into the Rev W Awdry’s creation by hospital porter Ken Wright.

It will be used to carry up to a dozen child passengers on journeys around the hospital’s grounds at 20p a time.