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Opinions

Welcome to our opinons page, here you will find columns from well known locals such as Chrissy Dawson, Dan Jarvis, Ian McMillan, Milly Johnson, Ronnie Steele, Shelly Diprose and Stephanie Peacock.

As always we like to encourage our readers to get in touch with issues that matter to them.

If you'd like to send in a letter to our Editor based on something you have read today, or on another topic you can do so via email here.

Milly Johnson: It’s amazing what you can do if you try...
IT is a good job I’m not the sort of person who sees the green man at a crossing and just steps out presuming there are no idiotic tw*ts (insert your own vowel) on the road. Once again at the Penny Pie Park to Horizon traffic light, I nearly got mowed down by a motorbike who obviously decided that red traffic lights do not apply to him. I always check for colourblind kn*bheads (insert...
Milly Johnson: Social media ‘dog’ needs putting on a lead
I HAD a meeting with the Barnsley Hospital chiefs last week – fourteen months after my mum died there. As many of you know, I have been in a state of trauma since and I’ve been asked so many times how I am, how things are that I felt duty bound to write this. Mum didn’t have the care she should have but please note, this is not a post that seeks to carry...
Milly Johnson: Organisers missed the point with their invite
I GOT an invitation this week which I found very hard to turn down (sarcasm alert). A firm in Sheffield that brings women together asked me to be a guest panellist at an International Women’s Day event in March. An evening meant to inspire and value women. Except there wasn’t much valuing going on seeing as there was a big underlined message at the bottom of the email informing me that they aren’t in...
Ronnie Steele: I’ve never once ridden a push-bike
It’s 1977, I’m married with a very young child, and I’m out of work. After suffering a chronic knee injury in my first proper job (osteoarthritis) and resigning from my second career as a civil servant – because the boredom was driving me out of my mind – I move to nearby East Retford to train as a primary school teacher. After three years of intense study, the cutbacks in education mean there are...
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MP Stephanie Peacock: Barnsley is being represented on the national stage
With our country electing the first Labour government in 14 years and the people of Barnsley South returning me to Parliament with an increased majority of nearly 5,000 votes, 2024 has been a significant year both nationally and locally. However, despite these positive results, the year has also brought challenges for both our country and our town. Working people continue to bear the brunt of a cost of living crisis, our public services...
Chrissy Dawson: Everything in moderation is better than a new year’s resolution
Whether you like the new year or not, it’s more or less here again. I have to admit that I’m not a fan of the celebrations, and tend to stay at home, nice and warm, PJs on, eating and having a drink of my choice. I do see in the new year but I’m always slightly relieved when I wake up on January 1 and it’s all over. I know, I know -...
Ronnie Steele: Better funding for teaching Hospitals
ON December 10, me and three other guys, from somewhere in the north of England, are admitted into one of the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals for major surgery. Three have to undergo life-saving cancer operations and the fourth was born with an extra kidney, which has to be surgically removed since it’s now ‘gone t’wrong rooad’. All four patients range in age from 45 to 71. Nothing much can ever be remembered about the discomfort...
Ian McMillan: It’s well worth pondering our road network…
I’ve just been to see an amazing exhibition at The British Museum in That London (and of course The British Museum should be in Barnsley, but that’s an argument for another day) called Silk Roads. It’s about those trade routes that began thousands of years ago and that cover huge parts of the world from China and Japan through those mysterious places in central Asia that have changed names so many times over the...
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Milly Johnson: The frustrations of the NHS waiting game…
SADLY I do have to back up the experiences of Ann Bywater who wrote in a letter last week complaining about the arrangements for booking a phlebotomy appointment in the diagnostic centre in town. I had the same experience if I’m honest. I went to book it online and there were no appointments for weeks so I didn’t quite trust that and rang instead. I was on the line for a loooong time, then...
Ian McMillan: It’s funny how certain names are disappearing…
The name’s McMillan, Ian McMillan, licensed to fade away. Well, not me personally; I’m not fading away. It’s my name, or more precisely my first name, which is beginning to bite the dust. I’ve got a few mates called Ian and Iain and they’re all around my age (I’m 68) or a little bit older; by contrast when I’m at the playground in Elsecar Park I don’t hear any parents or grandparents shouting to...
Ronnie Steele: Kevin Fisher and his links to British Boxer Randolph Turplin
This true tale is mainly about Barnsley’s Kevin Fisher and his links to one of the greatest British boxers in history – Randolph Turpin. But to start with, I’ll explain how I first heard of Turpin. My father hero-worshipped this black British boxer from Warwick. One evening, in the 1960s, while he drew on a Park Drive cigarette, he told me: “When Turpin fought the world champion, Sugar Ray Robinson, no one gave him...
Ronnie Steele: The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign
THE Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign is a crusade that threatens to reveal what really happened on one significant day during the miners’ strike. On June 18th 1984, the BBC Evening News showed scenes from that day’s Battle of Orgreave. The TV clips were clear enough: striking coal miners appeared to have rioted in fields near the Orgreave Coking Plant in Rotherham. As an active trade unionist with a father and other relatives...
Stephanie Peacock: Public transport improvements are vital
Everyone should be able to rely on public transport services in their local area to get to work, school, or simply get across their community. In fact, since 2010, there have been 300 million fewer miles travelled on buses every year. This is really concerning. For too long, this has not been the case, and people across the country, including those in Barnsley, are left without the transport they need to get on...
Milly Johnson: ‘Dame Esther should be listened to...’
THE worst bit about autumn is when the dog does her business in the leaves, it’s a bit like the poo version of ‘Where’s Wally’. But we do locate it and pick it up, because you absolutely should; it’s disgusting not to. But those leaves make it hard to avoid standing in the poo that shouldn’t be there because some dirty get has decided not to pick up after their dog. If you...
Dan Jarvis: Government committed to getting country on track
While the last general election in July already feels like an age ago, in the last three months the new government has been working flat out to deliver the change our town, and our country, demands and deserves - even if what you read online and in some parts of the media doesn’t always reflect that. Let’s be honest, it hasn’t been plain sailing, but it was never going to be. We are, though,...
Shelly Diprose: ‘Losing your sex drive as you get older is a very common problem...’
Relationship Expert Shelly Diprose tries to solve your intimate problems Q: I’m a straight male, 53, my partner and I have been together for 30 years. We love each other very much and I still fancy her and she says she fancies me, but we rarely have sex anymore and when we do, it feels like she isn’t really there, she seems distracted and I get the feeling she can’t wait for it to...
Chrissy Dawson: Had I have wanted a workout, I’d have gone to the gym…
I really do believe that I must be the only woman in Barnsley that hates going clothes shopping and yes, I know I’m in the minority. I can’t help but find it so stressful. I usually wait until I have no choice and then armed with bag, phone, purse and clothing that is easy to remove I march off to war. I can not do with too many layers to take off and then...
Dan Jarvis: Tour de Britain was spectacular
Millions of viewers from across the globe tuned in to see the world’s best cyclists take to Barnsley’s streets for South Yorkshire’s leg of the Tour of Britain on Thursday. The cycling spectacular capped off an incredible series of events locally that have inspired us to get moving this summer – whilst displaying the very best of our community and our borough. The internationally acclaimed Tour of Britain’s stop in Barnsley was a resounding...
Ian McMillan: The seasons are starting to change…
These days, when I’m on my early stroll at 5.30am, I can definitely tell that the year is turning and changing; same when I’m on my evening stroll. The nights are drawing in, closing their curtains earlier, opening their curtains earlier. I know that soon, when I’m early strolling, it will feel like I’m wandering through the middle of the night. Thinking about this early morning and late evening darkness brought to mind a...
Ian McMillan: Summer strolls bring back memories…
It’s about 7pm on a late summer’s evening. August is on the third lap of its month-long race and September is waiting somewhere up the track for the baton to be handed on. Which baton? The time baton, Dr Who fans! The year is slipping away like water down a plughole. I’ll turn round and suddenly the Christmas trees will be in the windows and next year’s Easter eggs will be in the shops. ...