I went on a social tonight and had the opportunity to visit a 12th century church at Hemingbrough, next to the pub that we were convening at. I walk in and an old boy from the village is as good as asleep in the corner on a chair as I walk in, he wakes up promptly and starts chatting to me; “Here we go” I self absorbedly lay think to myself, I’m accosted! However, turns out that he’s the former warden there and when I say where I’m “frum”, we quickly start talking about the fact that in his youth, he met a friend who turns out to be from Barnsley whilst on his hols in Brid and that he started going to Barnsley matches with him! Harry Hough, Cec McCormack, Skinner Normanton and Gordon Pallister all got a mention, which in my mind dates back to 50’s/60’s, but on looking it up later, could be as far back as 1950/1 ish! Must make him 81 to 91+ I reckon! Mentioned watching the Reds v Hudds in front of 27k to me at Oakwell (?), which was doubly weird as one of my mates on the same social had spent a few years rounding up locals in that village to be Hudds fans from there and in fact his son was with us in a town shirt today. He gave me a nice short tour of the church (civil war & mouseman stuff) and his only ask was that I signed the visitors book, which promptly got an “Up the Reds” for his benefit. He was also saying that the late Karen Keating put the new weather vane on for Blue Peter’s benefit in around 1989, which was very much ringing a bell (!) with my timeframe. He said that it had made his day…. Well it made my month! They live amongst us still!
