T' tarn

You may have heard the sketch that Michael Mcintyre does, where he explains that in Yorkshire, we don't use the word "the". He's right in as much as "the" is only implied, but in his sketch he uses "T" instead of "the". This is wrong. We say "T" instead of "to the". So "to the Asda" becomes "T' Asda" but "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" becomes "Lion, Witch, n wardrobe". I just thought I'd put you straight.

On Saturday morning, I went into Barnsley. Locally Barnsley is knows as "Tarn" (Yorkshire for "town"). I had a specific reason for going (which I will tell you about tomorrow), but I thought I would show you some of the buildings that caught my eye.

The town itself has suffered greatly over the past few years like all northern towns have. Some very modern dodgy town planning in the 1970's resulted in a lot of the town now looking a bit grim. These buildings were all part of the shops and offices that used to be owned by Barnsley British Co-orperative Society (I can still remember my Mums "divi" number!!!). When I was little, this is where you bought your school uniforms and special clothing for the "Sunday School Anniversary". Posh weddings were held in its Centenary Rooms, and its cafe was a quite extravagant affair with waitress service too.

If you walk past them now they look grim at street level as most are now empty or turned into bars,

but looking up, the buildings are magnificent.

Its a shame that town planning has not valued these amazing buildings, choosing to knock down many and build soulless glass and steel buildings instead.

One thing that Barnsley does have LOTS of is charity shops - honestly about 20! I found these new colourful tea towels for 50p which will brighten up my kitchen.

I'll show you where I went, and tell you a quite remarkable story tomorrow.