International Women's Day 2026

Dorothy Hyman, interviewed 12 Jul 2022 in Barnsley Town Hall. Relates to her life, focusing on being an Olympian and World Champion.

A-3950-C-1-13 Dorothy Hyman

Steven Skelley interviewing Mel Dyke MBE on 10 July 2019 in Staincross, Barnsley. Mel was born in Barnsley and came from a family of miners including her father. Her mother was a weaver from a family of women weavers from Halifax. She was an author, educationalist, and campaigner for Barnsley. She was often referred to as “Mrs Barnsley”. Mel passed away at the aged of 86 in July 2023.

In this interview, Mel begins by talking about her family and childhood. She spends most of her life in Barnsley, but was always in Halifax during the summer holidays. Her family previously lived in Halifax up on Bailey Hall Bank but returned to Barnsley when the Prime Minster (then) Churchill needed more miners to dig coal for the war. She talks about her primary education at Saint Mary’s Infant School and Saint Mary’s Girls School which included getting a scholarship and achieving GCSE. Upon finishing school at the aged of 16, she worked for a bit before starting a family. She didn’t go out to work until her children went to school full time. She refers to an article in the Barnsley Chronicle (1960s) by Sir Alec Clegg about going into teaching, which led her to apply to Swinton Day Training College where she spent her first year and then next two years at the Scoresby College on Doncaster Road. She also talks about the positive impact Sir Alec Clegg brought to schools. She describes the perception people have of Barnsley and goes on to mention the various well-known women from Barnsley. Mel also shares her experiences of giving talks in America and Australia. 

Mel refers to the miners as a ‘very proud bunch’ and is proud of her father working hard so that they could have coal all winter. She tells the story about footballer Mick McCarthy who was taught to play football by nuns at the Worsbrough Catholic School. She recalls sweets rationing during the World War Two before briefly mentioning about Arthur Scargill. 

Mel further talks about her teaching careers at Lawrence Briggs Infant School, Bretton Hall and Darton High School. She has helped children to improve their reading skills and even designed a reading scheme for young people to learn to read so that they could get a job as a miner.

She mentions about receiving a note from Sir David Attenborough addressed to the Barnsley Youth Choir saying how proud his uncle Sir Alec Clegg would have been of them for making Barnsley world champions. She also talks about the Barnsley dialect, subjects that she wrote about and the various children and young people she worked with. Mel ends the interview by offering advice based on her own personal experience.

A transcript is available for this item. Please contact Barnsley Archives and Local Studies for further information – archives@barnsley.gov.uk.

A-3950-C/1/10 Sound Recording of Mel Dyke MBE

Steven Skelley interviewing Dana Kubick on 29 October 2018 at her studio in London about her involvement as an artist for the Barnsley Canister Company and Hunkydory Designs. Dana has been working with tinware design since 1983. In this interview, she shares how she came up with the idea of fun shaped small tins and approached Hunkydory who loved the idea. They in turn introduced her to the Barnsley Canister Company and they worked together to deliver her idea into full production. The tins were very popular and came in a variety of shapes such as cats, dogs and teddy bears and sold in millions. Dana explains the complete process of how the tins were made from her drawings through to the finished product. The interview then explores how this led to other opportunities including a series of children’s books based on the tin design characters published by Walker Books. One of the characters was a little teddy bear which an ice cream maker, Phillip Marcantonio, when reading one of the books to his granddaughter realised that the bear in the story was what he had always wanted on his ice cream wafers. This led onto various teddy bear designs being used for Marcantonio Foods merchandise.

A transcript is available for this item. Please contact Barnsley Archives and Local Studies for further information – archives@barnsley.gov.uk.

This description and its associated transcription are both licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

A-3950-C/1/5 Sound Recording of Dana Kubick

Selina Wray talks about her childhood and education growing up in the town centre. Details about education at Longcar, Holgate School and Barnsley College. Talks about important places growing up – particularly Locke Park, swimming baths. Talks about the lack of role models in the sciences growing up and the importance of this. Talks about her work in dementia and Alzheimer's research in London, stem cell research. Importance of being a visible 'female scientist'. Talks about how Barnsley and changed and how she has access to a different side of the town now due to economic circumstance. Duration of interview: 68 mins. Date: 9 February 2017.

A-3739-Z-1-2 Selina Wray, Scientist

Oral history recordings by Jemma Conway (previously Barnsley Museums Community Curator) with various people who used to work for Slazengers .

A-2286-C-1-5 Sound Recording of Gail Haimes (née Stevenson)

An oral history interview with Steven Skelley, recorded on 14/02/25.

Download a full transcript from our website https://www.experience-barnsley.com/downloads/1499/Rita%20Britton%20Transcript.docx

In conversation with.....Rita Britton

Welcome to Barnsley Museums! These are the stories behind the collections and the people covering the 5 venues: Experience Barnsley, Elsecar Heritage Centre, Worsbrough Mill, Cannon Hall & The Cooper Gallery