Hobbies and Hangouts
Hobbies and Hangouts
Hobbies and interests were a huge part of people’s reminiscences of their teenage years. Located on Eldon Street we had The Civic Theatre, The YMCA, Barnsley Library and the cinema, as well as cafes and bar – popular locations for teens throughout the decades.
Performing Arts
“I can remember the smell of the theatre and the lights and the applause and the heat and the excitement and the rooms and it was always a bit dirty and dusty. I can still remember really clearly those performances” – Beverley, 80s teen, student of Mavis Burrows
Barnsley has a great tradition of performing arts and arts education, with many youth groups, dance schools, choirs and operatic groups being located at The Civic over the years, with performance opportunities across the borough for eager youngsters and teens. The people we spoke to recalled productions with amateur dramatics and operatic societies, dance lessons and performances via the Performing Arts Development Service (PADS) on Grove Street or at one of the many flourishing dance schools in the area. Even today, what used to be known at PADS, now Barnsley Museum Service, is based at Barnsley Civic, and sees hundreds of young people passing through its doors every week for lessons and performances. For those wishing to take their interest further, the Electric Theatre at Barnsley College was (and still is) the place to study and Bretton Hall attracted degree level teens locally and from across the whole country.
“I did Barnsley Art College, the performing arts course, the first year it started, it became Electric Theatre. We were at Park Grove most of the time and then we came to Berneslei Close to do some art classes … We thought we were on the theme show, we were the kids from Fame! So we would be bursting into song and dance anywhere and everywhere that we possibly could”. Louise, 80s teen, student of Mavis Burrows
The Civic Hall on Eldon Street was the central hub for theatre, dance and performances both professional and amateur, offering young people the opportunity to perform on a real stage and experience that rush of a live audience. A traditional theatre with a grand entrance on Eldon Street, the main auditorium had both a stalls and a circle area with tiered seating then a large stage with a warren of changing rooms, prop stores and corridors backstage.
The Mavis Burrows School of Dance was based at The Civic for a number of years, and in addition to other local companies such as Rosalyn Wickes and Betty Chapelle, teenagers studying dance would often be called to the stage as dancers for annual pantomimes, amateur dramatic shows and musicals. The dancers would often feel that the Civic was a second home, spending many of their evenings and weekends in rehearsals as well as the shows themselves. A host of full-time staff were familiar faces to the teens we talked to who described The Civic as like a family.
“We used to rehearse for months and months on a Sunday, and then the week before the pantomime, we went into the theatre, we put all together with the cast. I don’t think as well we realised what kind of famous people we were working with.” Eleanor, 80s teen, dance student and daughter of Rosalyn Wicks
As a theatre, this would attract big national gigs and shows – wrestling was a particularly fond memory for many people we interviewed – as well as large-scale local productions; the Ros ’n’ Geoff show, for example, was a variety style concert of music, dance and theatre which was particularly popular and always a sell out for the venue.
Louise Tomes and friends Bev, Joanne, Jillian and Helen, official Mavis Burrows School of Dance panto shots, 1983. Donated by Louise Devenney and Monica Tomes.
Music
Music has always been at the heart of teen culture, and for the people we spoke to, music influenced everything from your style and fashion preferences, to how you spent your free time and money, the places you went to and who you hung around with.
“I used to listen to lots of things on the radio but music was Radio Luxembourg” David, 50s teen
As teenagers, many of the people we interviewed were influenced by older siblings, close family and friends when it came to music, and the charts and the Top Ten featured heavily in people’s recollections whether it was grabbing a magazine to see the latest chart rankings, buying records at Casa Disco, Neal’s Records or another of the many record shops in town, or taping their favourite songs off the radio to create homemade mix tapes.
Woolworths, Casa Disco and Neal’s Record shop were just a few of the places in the town centre that music-minded teens could browse, discover, and spend their pocket money.
“I got three brothers and sisters that were all obsessed with music. Ah Steph has something like six thousand records. An incredible collection of singles and albums, everything. I was just immersed in it from day dot. My oldest brother in 60s, he got a record player and got the first copy of The Beatles’ White album in Barnsley. And I used to skive off of junior school to play his record at home, so it’s been with me all them years.” Andy, 70s/80s teen
“If I weren’t eating or sleeping or working, I was practicing guitar. And that was my life” Stuart, 60s teen, member of the band The Easybeats.
Whether it was listening to the radio and latest chart hits at home, out buying records or going to watch bands and gigs live, the people we spoke to all remember how important music was to them as they navigated their teenage years. At home or out dancing, music was at the crux of their teen social life and many took it a step further, learning an instrument and forming their own bands to play music themselves. In whatever capacity, music always has been and always will be a mainstay of youth culture with songs that have the capacity to instantly transport you back to those times.
As many of teenagers got older, some of them formed bands and performed around Eldon Street, which was home to several pubs such as Dolly’s in the 1980s through to 1990s and The Room which was at the same Eldon Street address in the 2000s and 2010s. Both had live music and DJs. Barnsley radio and TV presenter and DJ Stephanie Hirst, cut her teeth DJing at Dolly’s in the early 1990s.
Seven local heavy metal fans and musicians meet to discuss the local scene of the 1970s and 80s. Filmed by GSK Videography, 2022.
The Civic hosted Barnsley Folk Club, several dance nights such as the Teens and Twenties disco in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1970s, The Civic’s main hall became a destination for chart acts, including Suzi Quatro, Mud, Brian Eno and Bay City Rollers. Meanwhile, The Centenary Rooms on the top floor of the building became the go-to music venues for local bands. In the late 1970s, South Yorkshire became a hive of activity for the burgeoning New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene. Alongside this, on October 22nd 1977, one near legendary gig took place in the Centenary Rooms, when the town’s first punk gig took place and was stopped early by police.
“I think first gig I ever went to was at The Civic. The first proper gig that I went to on my own, with mates, it was The Chords supported by the Kilometres at Barnsley Civic and that was a real buzz. We felt, you know, we’re part of something.” Tony, 80s teen
“Barnsley’s own Glastonbury style crowds, singing along, particularly with the hits from Mud and the Bay City Rollers. Whereas you felt you’d lost your hearing after Suzi Quatro. It was quite something at that time to have a girl guitarist playing rock like her hit Devil Gate Drive. I always remember my dad being so worried as he waited outside to meet us after the concert – a condition for allowing us to go in the first place! – as he saw girls being brought out on stretchers by medics as they had fainted with hysteria. The response to the Bay City Rollers resembling that of the Beatles’ back in the 60’s. Much screaming as I recall.” Kay, 70s teen
Mucking about outdoors / youth clubs
“At weekends we used to just muck about…it’s a cliche now but we’d go out at dawn and come back in at dusk”. Wayne, 60s teen
Many of the people we spoke to remembered a sense of freedom and the memory of long summer days spent outside or cold, dark evenings spent hanging around with friends. One thing that has become obvious during this project is that young people don’t spend as much time outdoors as they used to. It’s generally considered that it was safer for children and young people to play outdoors alone in previous decades plus the advent of the internet, social media and video games has arguably led to more time indoors.
“If you got stopped from going to the youth club for whatever reason, whether it be from school, or from domestic, your parents, it was an horrendous punishment. I suppose the equivalent in today’s terms would be having your phone took off you.’ It had everything, whatever your interests were.” Wayne, 60s teen
Parks and woodlands offered a world of imagination for younger children, with youth clubs and outdoor pursuits tempting more adventurous teens. Until the 1960s, the upper floors of 12 – 18 Eldon Street was home to Barnsley’s YMCA, until in early 1966, a new YMCA was built on the corner of Blutcher Street and Pitt Street. Until the 1990s, youth clubs existed all over Barnsley, with most principle towns and villages having their own, being sited in village hall, church halls and community centres. Many people fondly remembered these and the range of activities on offer.
Other clubs that teens have been involved with through the decades include sports, outdoor pursuits, and even Barnsley Lambretta club.
Arts and Libraries
When the Civic building first opened in 1878 as the Mechanics Institute and Public Hall, it was home to Barnsley School or Art and the Mechanics Institute, and remained there until 1946. The school when then located at Fairfield House and then later at an old school house on Park Road, before amalgamating with Barnsley College at the end of the 1980s.
“Someone suggested Barnsley Art College, and, you know, I didn’t realize that even existed at that point, and he kind of introduced me to that. It actually blew my mind that I could go to college and just do all the subjects that I wanted to do, that I were interested in, you know, and, you know, it were two of the best years of my life.” David, 80s teen
“Back in the day, libraries were such a meeting place for people and it was sort of the hub; such a mix and a mele of different people that used to come in” Susan, 60s teen, worked at The Library
The lower ground floor of The Civic was once the home to Barnsley’s central library. To get to it, you passed through the main entrance of Eldon Street and through the second doors with arched glass windows into the lower ground level, which are still there today. The library service remained in the building in its various guises until the opening of the new Central Library in Shambles Street in February 1975. The Shambles Street site closed in 2014, when it made Wellington House its temporary home until the new Library @The Lightbox was erected in 2019 as part of the town centre Glassworks redevelopment.
“I’d literally just pick up anything I liked the look of, and listen to it. And then I used to get books out all the time. And I did meet a girlfriend in the library once” Jason, 90s teen
Many teens remember visiting the library regularly for books and newspapers, as well as tapes, CDs and records which were available to borrow. It was a popular spot for meeting up and socialising as well as for sitting and reading.
Cinema
“The cinema which was a regular place to visit, but it was more of a treat because we had a local cinema at Elsecar that was much cheaper than coming into town. If you came to the cinema in town you made an event of it”. David P. 60s teen
The cinema was a recurring theme in this project and a common thread for teens across the decades. In various guises (Empire, Gaumont, Odeon and now Parkway) the site has been home to a cinema for over a hundred years, ensuring that Eldon Street has been a centre for youth culture and a magnet for teenagers for more than a century.
Whether recounting first dates, remembering special screenings, favourite films or regular nights out with friends or family, the cinema has been a hot topic and a source of joy for many of the people we interviewed.
“We were fifteen. He was in the army, he was training. We went on our first date to the Odeon. I have no recollection what we saw. I know it was absolute rubbish because we left before the end of it. We said, “Let’s go” and as we were going I’d got this box of Maltesers and they just spilt and scattered and went all down the aisle and everything. So that’s our standard joke now, you know, Maltesers at the cinema.”
Nowadays, as well as screening the best in mainstream and independent film, the team at Parkway take pride in preserving the art of the projectionist, showing 35 mm and 70 mm film, as well as screening screened theatre productions and live music. In 2022, Parkway was successful in purchasing the freehold for this important building, thus safeguarding its future.
“It’s the same order every time, we get to teas, two bags of sweets and a mixed Slush Puppy.” Jess, 10s teen
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