HERE’S a selection of stories as they were reported in the Chroncile back in September 1997.
A GANG of poachers from Barnsley switched on their high powered torches and tried to dazzle officers who were chasing them in a police car.
Minutes before they had used the torches to shine on a deer that was running in front of their four-wheel drive vehicle near Toddington, Bedfordshire. It was then dragged down by their pack of lurcher dogs and killed.
The four poachers also broke into a pheasant pen where they killed six birds with a hammer.
The police arrived and the poachers’ car drove off at full speed with some of the occupants using their torches to try to dazzle the driver of the police car.
Eventually police managed to stop the vehicle and all four occupants were arrested.
VANDALS at Birdwell have been using catapults to fire stolen wheel nuts out of moving cars.
Two windscreens were smashed on Sheffield Road, Birdwell, and police in Hoyland have issued an appeal for information.
PC Andy Schofield said: “In both cases the rear windscreens were smashed and chrome wheel nuts were found inside.
“It’s open to speculation as to how they are doing it but it would seem likely that they are firing them from a moving car.
“We’re greatly concerned as there’s a lot of people about in the early evening.
We’re afraid one of these wheel nuts could cause some serious damage. If they can do that to a car windscreen, imagine what one could do to someone’s skull.”
POET Ian McMillan is taking his poems to Mexico.
Wandering poet Mr McMillan, 41, from Darfield, is normally far from being tongue-tied. But he could be this time.
The trip, a British Council push to bring a bit of Tyke culture to Mexico, comes 25 years after he did his O-level mock Spanish exam he never sat the real thing.
“The only phrase I know is ‘Can you speak Spanish’ and the only word I know is ‘cat’.
EFFORTS to improve life for residents in Dodworth Road has ended up making life hell for others, it was claimed this week.
Bollards were put up at the ends of Moorland Avenue and Crown Hill Road, off Dodworth Road, after residents complained that people were using both roads as a short-cut.
But the move has made life difficult for residents on Dodworth Road, with levels of traffic making it harder for them to get into and out of their drives.
The temporary barriers have been up for an experimental period to help the council monitor the problems, but there have already been complaints from the police after traffic going into Barnsley has been queuing down the motorway sliproads and as far back as Dodworth railway crossing.
