Megan Wallace explores the Barnsley Chronicle archives from 1979.

CHILDREN banging drums, cymbals and tambourines led teachers and parents through a small Barnsley pit village’s streets to warn education chiefs against closing their school.

The 101-year-old primary school at Woolley Colliery, which lies on the boundary between Wakefield and Barnsley, is under review by Wakefield Education Authority following a government white paper forecasting a drop in school populations.

Although the three-teacher school has 59 pupils - nine more than the minimum set by Wakefield - parents, teachers and school governors fear that the authority will close the school and kill the village.

June Willey, a teacher at the school for 20 years, said: “Apart from the school there is nothing left in the village at all.

“The village will lose its identity if the school goes.”

AMERICAN and Canadian tourists wanting to trace their heritage in the Barnsley area are causing a Barnsley hotel to plan its second expansion programme within a year.

The Ardsley House Hotel, operated by South Riding Hotels Ltd, this week announced plans for a 21-bedroom extension, making the hotel a 64-bed establishment.

Only last year 24 bedrooms were added to the hotel complex because of demand from visitors to Barnsley, and this was completed in 77 days.

The television programme ‘Roots’, which traced the heritage of a family stimulated interest in America and Canada amongst families who knew their ancestors were from Britain.

Each week the hotel is receiving bookings from travel agencies whose clients want to stay a month in Barnsley to trace their heritage.

THE newly-renovated Trustees Savings Bank in Barnsley will be open this week for public viewing.

John Keirs, area director of the NCB, officially opened the refurbishment bank in Peel Square.

The building, formally owned by the Barnsley Chronicle who bought it in 1889, was known as the Chronicle building.

Great care has been taken in renovating, and improvements have been made by changing the size and design of the windows.

The whole of the stonework has been cleaned by specialists and a new illuminated sign has been provided.

DOLE-bound youngsters have a second chance of a brighter future when the town’s new Sixth Form College opens its doors in the former girls’ high school on Huddersfield Road.

Registration is open until the last minute, not only for school-leavers but also to any 16 to 19-year-olds who have already left school but have been unable to find work.

There are no exam qualifications for entry into the college, in which each student will follow a programme individually tailored to offer the best possible career opportunities.

The college principal, Anthony Dobell, believes that sixth form colleges elsewhere already demonstrates that the finest features of traditional sixth forms can be maintained while the individual student has a greater opportunity for choice.

CO-OPERATIVE Retail Services in Barnsley has smashed through a trading barrier by making a yearly net profit of £1m for the first time ever.

Announcing the trading figures this week, general manager John Hewitt said: “We have passed a milestone during the past year and are all very pleased.”

Mr Hewitt said the profit was made on record sales of £26.2m, an increase of 14 per cent on last year’s sale figures.

But trading conditions had been difficult because of added competition, particularly in food, where profit margins had been reduced.

The loss from that had, however, been recovered by reducing unit costs and operating more efficiently, he said: “So we finish the year with an increase in profit of just over £100,000 over a year ago, at £1,402,776.”