HERE’S a selection of stories as they were reported in the Barnsley Chronicle in September 1978.
Barnsley funny man Ronnie Dukes is to go on stage again only weeks after being forced to quit because of a third heart attack.
Dukes, 48, will join his wife Ricki and the rest of the family in October for their first date at a night-spot in Kenilworth, Warwickshire.
“The doctors say I’m getting better so I don’t see why I shouldn’t do eight or ten weeks a year,” said Ronnie at his Cawthorne home this week.
Mr Dukes said another reason for his return was the ‘ridiculous’ figure of £300,000 the Inland Revenue has asked him to pay.
“But that is not the main reason. I have returned to the act to do occasional dates because it will save me vegetating away looking at the flowers in the garden,” he added.
“It will mean that Ricki has now three careers. She will be making records, working with me and working on her own,” said Ronnie.
FORMER England soccer international Jack Charlton, and his five Worsbrough neighbours at a 16th century property, Rockley Old Hall, are protesting against their address being changed to Rockley Court.
The address has been changed by Barnsley Council, and the six householders, who paid between £18,000 and £35,000 for their homes, complain that Rockley Court is out of keeping with the property being listed as a building of architectural and historical interest.
Mr Charlton, who is now manager of Sheffield Wednesday, said: “It seems pointless and silly to change the address now after it has been known as Rockley Old Hall ever since the property was built.”
One of his neighbours, Ian Firth, said: “I don’t think any practical purpose has been served by changing the address.”
WHEN out walking his pet poodle one evening last week, a terrified ten-year-old Athersley boy was attacked by an Alsatian and dragged over five yards of gravel, receiving bites, gashes, cuts and grazes.
And if not for the quick thinking and brave actions of a passing motorist, who beat off the dog, Kevin Parkin, of Derwent Road, could have been seriously injured.
Kevin, however, still had to go to hospital where he was treated for multiple injuries, including deep tooth marks around his shoulder, a gash across his wrist, grazes to his elbow and bruises on his legs.
And, to make matters worse, a tetanus injection he was given affected him badly and for three days afterwards he was very poorly, not being able to sleep and hardly able to walk.
His six-year-old poodle — aptly named Kevin’s Delight — was also savaged by the Alsatian and had to receive treatment.
BARNSLEY councillors have approved urgent adaptations to the Cudworth area housing office following an attack on two housing staff members by an irate council tenant.
Proposals for the office include improving interviewing facilities, and alterations which will allow staff to move from office to office without entering public areas.
WITH no experience of long-distance walking, a 16-year-old Barnsley youth has just completed the most difficult trek in England on his own - the Pennine Way.
Russell David Fletcher, of Waltham Street, set off from Edale In Derbyshire. It took him 15 days to walk the 260 miles to Kirk Yetholm in Scotland, covering some of the roughest land in the country.
