WHEN Barry Johnson was starting his Army Cadet Force career, the Prime Minister was Harold Macmillan, the Beatles were just starting out and Ben-Hur was cleaning up at the Oscars.
It was 1960 and Barry had just completed three years as a cadet in the Barnsley Cadet Detachment at the Drill Hall on Eastgate.
After training cadets there for 24 years, he then commanded all the cadet detachments in Barnsley and Rotherham.
In 1975, Barry organised a visit for 30 cadets to Hohne in West Germany as guests of the 13/18 Royal Hussars. It was a wonderful experience for the cadets, as the majority had never been overseas before. There was also a visit to the Royal Military Police based at Dortmund, West Germany, in 1985.
Barry, 74, of Darton Lane, Mapplewell, has been nominated in the Proud of Barnsley awards by his grandson Daniel Johnson for his 60 years of service.
Daniel said: “He has always encouraged the young people to join schemes like the Duke of Edinburgh Award, CVQO and BTEC. There are a lot of young people in the community and he has assisted in preparing them for the future and the challenges that lie ahead. In a world growing more complex by the day he believes that the Army Cadet Force continues to set expectations of selfless behaviour and encourage self discipline and respect whilst providing both challenge and excitement for so many outstanding young people.”
During Barry’s cadets career, his main passion was target rifle shooting and training adults and cadets in the skills of both military and civilian shooting. During 1985, he was appointed ‘shooting officer for the county of south Yorkshire’ up until 2010.
Over the years, he and his team have covered all aspects of cadet shooting and safely trained thousands of cadets in the skills of competition at county, national and international standards.
Barry was also appointed the post of shooting officer for the North East of England from 1988 until 2010.
The ultimate honour and a privilege in any sport is to represent one’s country. In 1993 and 1995 Barry was invited to take 15 cadets from the UK to attend a six week training and coaching course in Ottawa, Canada. During 1995,1996 and 1997 he organised cadet teams from Yorkshire and Cumbria to compete in shooting competitions alongside Irish cadets in Belfast. In 1998, Barry commanded the first Great Britain under 19s team to compete in the South African National Rifle Championships and 2006 saw him back in Canada as the commander of the British Cadet Team competing in the Canadian National Rifle Championships.
Barry is now a civilian instructor in Barnsley training cadets in the skills of rifle shooting.
Read more in this weeks Barnsley Chronicle
