I FIRST met Anne Dickinson in 2018 – years before I started my Chronicle column. She came to buy a load of Kes memorabilia because we were raising funds for Graham Ibbeson’s bronze statue.

I couldn’t place her accent so I asked, “You travelled a long way?”

“Hmmm, a fair distance, I suppose. I’ve come from India.”

“Sorry Anne,” I said, smiling. “I thought you said ‘India’.”

“I did. I’m a Barnsley girl but I’ve lived in India for many years. And I’m here for a short break – staying with relatives in Hoyland Common,” she said, as she placed her purchases in a hessian bag.

Anne went on to tell me she was raised in Hoyland and, during her early school days, made friends with Sally Hines – daughter of Barry.

“Barry Hines was such a lovely kind man,” she told me. “Oh, and I also knew the famous comedian Harry Worth, who lived not a stone’s throw away.”

“Oh, Anne, I adored Harry Worth in his 1960s TV show. But I thought he was from Cud’orth?”

“No. 47 Fitzwilliam Street, Hoyland Common.”

As she was leaving I asked her to keep in contact through Facebook because I’d be interested in learning how a Hoyland lass finished up living in India.

After that day, Anne and I never lost touch. I was impressed with her Facebook posts and she often ‘liked’ mine.

Nevertheless, I was a bit surprised recently when she sent me a private message revealing that her secret hobby was writing.

“Would you mind reading one of my narratives, critically?”

Her 600-word story blew me away. On the surface, it’s about a simple play she took part in, as a pupil, at Hoyland Common Junior School in the 1970s.

Anne was ‘leading lady’ and all the children felt pressure because in the audience that day was none other than former alumnus, Harry Worth.

The play’s formula was a mix of the old silent movies and pantomime: a family, victims of severe poverty, face eviction.

The daughter tries to fight off the evil landlord but is abducted. The landlord ties her to a railway track as a fast train approaches. A brave hero arrives just in time to rescue the girl.

However, Anne’s memoir also contains something slightly magical. She describes how the school created a mini museum especially for parents and other visitors. It included such things as a World War 2 gas mask and an old washing mangle, but one other thing especially caught Anne’s eye and connected deeply.

It was a small figure of an Indian lady, sitting in a rocking chair, dressed in a faded-green sari.

Anne felt an immediate emotional attachment to the figure that she couldn’t explain, and still can’t today. So, every morning she would check on the Indian lady and do the same at home time.

Her teacher, the ‘wonderful Mrs Foster’, noticed Anne had become quieter than usual, so she took her to one side and asked if anything was bothering her.

On hearing Anne’s slightly unusual troubles, Mrs Foster took her to the hall, unclipped the partition rope and let Anne nurse the doll and feel her smooth polished skin. This meant so much to her.

Thereafter, Anne was drawn to everything Eastern. She went out of her way to find out about Indian and Chinese religions, culture, way of life, etc.

And, according to her memoir, over 30 years ago - when she got the opportunity to live on the sub continent – she took it and never looked back.

“I still love Barnsley but my home is India.”

And this got me thinking about an episode on, ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ where one guy was completely obsessed by the sea even though he lived nowhere near the coast.

But when he investigated his family tree he discovered his ancestors were mostly sea-farers.

The older I get the more I suspect that there is much in this world that remains undiscovered.

Imagine arguing in the 16th century that the earth was not flat but the shape of a ball, or suggesting that electricity could be created and harnessed – if you didn’t get burnt at the stake you’d be confined to a lunatic asylum.

And yet today the phenomena of premonitions is still scoffed at and ridiculed.

I’m a big believer in science but I do wonder if there are more things present on earth than we can ever dream of.