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 the 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 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 – [email protected].
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