Aroundtown Meets James Hill of Milk From The Hills
He’s the Millennial dairy farmer who is shaking up South Yorkshire’s milk supply with a growing number of farm-fresh milkshake vending machines. At the press of a button, you could be enjoying cold, creamy milk that only hours earlier had been robotically milked from a Holstein Friesian cow in Barnsley....
Aroundtown Meets Eliot Kennedy
You’ve no doubt heard the catchy chords and choruses written by South Yorkshire’s Eliot Kennedy. From inside the engine room of his Steelworks Studio, the unforgettable lyrics and melodies of a generation have been produced. His iconic songs have been sung by global superstars. Aretha Franklin. Celine Dion. Lulu. Without...
Aroundtown Meets Patrick Murphy
Barnsley’s Patrick Murphy isn’t an artist to be pigeonholed. He’s flown hundreds of brightly coloured birds around the world, immortalised Billy and Kes in steel, lit up South Yorkshire with poetic neon signs, fired a laser beam as the crow flies across Barnsley, and colour-bombed the East Front façade at...
Aroundtown Meets Kate Rusby
Christmas isn’t in full flight until Barnsley’s nightingale, Kate Rusby, starts her annual festive tour. Forget the defrosting diva, Miss Carey. With seven Christmas albums and an almost twenty-year tradition of a festive tour, it’s self-confessed holly head Kate who’s the unofficial queen of Christmas. Folk royalty since the early...
Aroundtown Meets Toby Foster
What do you call a man with one of the most recognisable voices on South Yorkshire’s airwaves? The same thing as the one whose acting credits include TV’s greatest ever comedies. The inimitable Toby Foster. For more than twenty years, Toby’s career has been a merry-go-round of sitcoms, stand-up and...
Aroundtown Meets Charlie Smark
She’s the 23-year-old who makes running a business look like a piece of cake. Since launching Dolly’s Desserts five years ago, Charlie Smark has brought hordes of people into Barnsley to satisfy their sweet tooth cravings with her range of velvety gelato and decadent desserts. But as well as its...
Aroundtown Meets Brian Hirst
How many kids dream of being a footballer when they grow up? But how many would sacrifice their dreams for family? Brian Hirst did. When given the opportunity to break into the first team of his boyhood club, Rotherham United, he turned down the contract to put his family’s considerations...
Aroundtown Meets Tony Batty
He might call himself the Sweeny Todd of Barnsley. But barber Tony Batty is anything but demonic. He’s shear saintlike, a breath of fresh hair who’s changing lives one haircut at a time. Over the last few years, 58-year-old Tony has made it his mission to give back to the...
Aroundtown Meets Lynsey Lockey
If there’s one person you’d want in your corner, it’s Lynsey Lockey. A force to be reckoned with in women’s boxing, she’s a fighter in every metaphorical way. She’s fought gender bias and injustice, battled melanoma, depression and personal loss, and combatted the struggle of being a busy working mum...
Aroundtown Meets Billingley Christmas Tree Farm
The big man in red might get all the glory, but there’s someone here in South Yorkshire without whom Christmas might not be so magical. His black boots are covered in mud, not soot, he carries loppers rather than a sack of presents, and in place of a sleigh is...
