YOU’LL have seen in last week’s Chronicle that Barnsley is putting forward an expression of interest to the government as the first step of a process that could end with us becoming the first UK Town of Culture in 2028.

I for one am convinced that we’ll get the award and I just can’t wait to tell people I’m from the Town of Culture.

To be honest, I’ll tell them endlessly until they tell me to shut up and maybe I won’t shut up until they shout at me to shut up. And I might shut up but I’ll still be grinning.

I remember when Hull got awarded City of Culture status a few years ago and Hull City fans sang joyfully to the opposition fans ‘you’ve only come for the culture’ and I’m looking forward to singing that from the East Stand at Oakwell in a couple of years.

Of course it’s going to be a long journey of expressing interest and then bidding but last Friday I was at a couple of events that really buoyed me up, in a cultural kind of way.

The first was a gathering of folks who are interested in putting forward the expression of interest.

We met at the Digital Media Centre and, over cups of tea and coffee and yes I admit I had a biscuit (or as I call them, Mind Fuel) we talked about the things that made Barnsley special to us.

I have to say from the start that as a proud Darfielder this bid will cover the whole of the borough, and the impressive thing about the meeting was that folks of all ages from all over the vast map of Barnsley talked with passion and excitement about how much they loved this place, about our can-do attitude, about the way we can use the past as a springboard for the future and about the way that we’re willing to have a go.

As somebody said: ‘you put something on, and people show up’.

Some of those in the room announced themselves as Barnsley (or Darfield or Monk Bretton or Goldthorpe) born and bred and some had been born in Barnsley and moved away and then come back because this town, this borough, is a welcoming place and it’s particularly welcoming to creative people.

Which, in the end, means everybody, because we’ve all got a tale to tell.

Because this was a gathering that was talking about creativity and participation we all had a go at making an artwork that expressed our views about the borough and what made it tick and, because I’m a wordy type not a visual type

I made the centrepiece of my masterpiece the sentence ‘at least the cynicism mines have shut’ because cynicism is the antidote to the joy that a Town of Culture would bring.

Leave your cynicism at the door, please!

Then last Friday evening I went to a brilliant event at the Civic as part of the Barnsley Book Festival; the poet Rowan McCabe was talking about his book The Door-to-Door Poet, when he spent a year going round the country knocking on doors and asking those who answered if they wanted a poem writing for them.

Of course he got a few slammed doors but he got lots of people saying yes and so he’d write a poem and go back in a couple of weeks and read the poem to them.

What really moved me was that he would go to places that the media like to portray as not very nice, like Jaywick in Essex, and he found people who loved their place and wanted it to succeed and I thought that in the past there has been a negative view of Barnsley in some quarters but due to our aforementioned can-do attitude the world’s idea of Barnsley is changing and becoming Town of Culture would help and accelerate that change.

And, like Rowan McCabe, we want fewer slammed doors and more people saying yes.

I walked out of that gig at the Civic with a spring in my step, I have to say.

I went home and, in a state of arty excitement or artcitement as I call it, started to write this column.

I had another biscuit and I dreamed of a future where everybody in the borough took part in something cultural at least once a week.

Where are you from, pal? The Town of Culture: I’ll see you there!