Waiting For The Bus

A Memory of Hoyland.

To the right of this picture, on the High Street was the town hall. For seven years I waited there every morning for the Jump Circular bus, or if I missed it the Rotherham bus to take me into Barnsley where I was at the then grammar school. I remember quite often running the three quarters of a mile up Green lanes and along Market Street to the town hall. The town hall had a magnificent clock which when I got to the post office on Market Street I could see the time and tell whether or not I could slow down. The bus was a double decker with open access at the back. (route masters) One morning it had just picked up speed and was at the corner on the right hand side of the photo. Someone told me that I had dropped my PE shoes, regulation black pumps or plimsolls to give them their correct name, not the nice trainers of today. running in them was not much better than running barefoot and you could feel every stone you trod on. I knew I had to retrieve them, mum and dad would have gone spare and at school it would be certain detention.( I was in my first year and things like that were seen differently.) I launched myself from the platform at the back of the bus hit the kerb with a thud and bounced. Someone on the platform vigorously rang the bell several times and the bus driver jammed on the breaks. The passengers were thrown forward in their seats, some thrown down the isle I was later informed. I got up and hobbled to retrieve my pumps. The bus waited and I got back on embarrassed and bruised only to receive a tongue lashing from the conductor for being so reckless in jumping off.
To the left of the photo was Walkers shop, which seemed to sell all the good stuff..... Shoes, toys, drawing materials, masks, caps for guns cowboy hats etc. they had a Christmas club where my parents used to save to buy the Christmas presents. We would go and choose. There was a fish and chip shop next to or near to Walkers which I would go to on some Saturdays. Queue up for fish chips more chips and scraps for mum, dad, brother and sisters then run all the way home with them under my arm. I think it was called Jolly's. The vicar at St John's church, which can just be seen in the photo, used to stand outside the church after the service on Sunday morning with a biscuit tin. He would catch all the passers by, many of whom were on there way to one of the many public houses that littered this part of Hoyland. When he had finished he would join them in the pub or so I was told.
Hoyland had quite a variety of shops in the sixties. The independent shops on the high street are now a thing of the past. I haven't been to Hoyland for a few years now. The town hall went a long time ago and when it went the land mark that was Hoyland went. I have many memories of Hoyland most of them good. I lived there until I was eighteen when I went to London and Hornsey Art College. I come back to visit relatives in Barnsley and Platt's Common but not as often as I would like to.