Chief reporter Jack Tolson delves into the Chronicle archives of forty years ago to see what was making the news back then...
MABEL PREPARING FOR HER FINAL RIDE
FEARLESS Mabel Scales is hoping to hop into the saddle again on Monday - at the age of 83 and almost 60 years after she last rode a horse.
It will a final ride for Mabel, of Kendray, and the answer to a long-held wish.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for so long and I want to prove to myself I can do it,” said Mabel.
“There’s lots of people who’ve told me I shouldn’t do it, but I won’t have anyone tell me I can’t do anything.
“I’ve been called stubborn times may, but I’ll bring a few people down a peg or two with this.”
Mabel, who has five grown-up children, last rode a horse in 1926, the year she was married.
“I had to stop riding then because it was my father who had the horse and I couldn’t take it with me when I got married,” she said.
NEW LOOK SHAW LANE
WHILE investigations continue into the possibility of building a sports centre in Barnsley it might reasonably be argued that there is already on in existence in the town.
For the complex covered by the Barnsley Cricket and Athletic Club at Shaw Lane caters for eight different sports and recent improvements to the main club building have greatly enhanced the social side of activities as well.
The improvements, officially opened on Tuesday night by Barnsley’s test umpire Dickie Bird, include new toilets, a new main entrance, bar and clubroom alteration, and a new illuminated sign provided by John Smith’s brewery.
It is planned to stage entertainment evenings at the club, which is also available for weddings, birthdays, parties and similar private functions.
WE DESPERATELY NEED MORE HELP
UNEMPLOYMENT in Barnsley is about to leap to more than one in five of the working population and ‘we desperately need help’ Barnsley Central’s MP Roy Mason has told the Prime Minister.
Even the nature of local National Coal Board investment was costing jobs, and, for every 100 miners thrown out of work, 20 people in supporting industries automatically went on the do, he said in a letter sent to Margaret Thatcher on Wednesday.
Between 1977 and 1983, 5,750 Barnsley district mining jobs were lost and the use of computerised technology in linking pits underground was causing the loss of others ‘by stealth’.
“In the light of all this, Barnsley Council decided to lead and launch the Coalfields Communities Campaign,” said Mr Mason.
“No sooner had we rallied 54 local authorities, representing 16 million people, to the cause, when another bombshell exploded in our district.
“The National Coal Board announced another 3,000 job losses and, as I have explained, this means at least 3,600 jobs will go.
“We have been knocked for six.”
