Pilgrimage

In 1969 I did not go to Woodstock. Instead I went to see a film called "Kes". It was based upon a novel I had read called "A Kestrel for a Knave" by a Yorkshire writer called Barry Hines.

Later, as a secondary school teacher of English I read "Kes" with a succession of classes and showed them the film version too.  Almost magically, "Kes" had the ability to capture the hearts of the roughest and most disinterested kids. They really engaged with Billy Casper's story - how a skinny lad of low academic ability from a council estate trained a young kestrel. It was inspirational.

And I met Barry Hines once at the Sheffield Trades and Labour Club. We talked for several minutes about the book and whether or not everybody has a hidden talent. He was softly spoken and charming. It was very much a two-way conversation.

Later still, in the 1990s, he was living in Sheffield and my wife became his practice nurse. He had a few ongoing health issues to deal with. And even later than that he began to show signs of Alzheimer's and spent the last decade of his life in a care home in the mining village of Hoyland  where he had been born and raised. Tragically, he had lost the ability to read years before his death in 2016.

Hoyland is a few miles north east of Sheffield and today I drove up there for a walk, parking Butch close to the rather isolated churchyard where Barry Hines and his wife are buried. Then I walked over the M1 motorway into Hoyland where I located a house that Barry Hines lived in during the 1970s. Across from there is a metal sculpture that depicts Billy Casper with his kestrel but it is not as good as the statue I photographed in Barnsley town centre earlier this year.

I also passed the ruins of Tankersley Manor where Barry Hines's brother  Richard gathered his own pet kestrel and trained it - just like Billy Casper. By the way, eighty year old Richard Hines lives fifty yards away from this house and though I have often said "hello" to him, we have never had a proper conversation.

I had been thinking about my private Barry Hines pilgrimage for a while and now I am pleased that I have done it but consequently there are a couple of questions I want to ask Richard. If I see him, I will swallow hard and try to pluck up the necessary courage.

Barry Hines 1939-2016