The Twelfth Man 2020

Who remembers “Give him the mon- ey, Barney” and who Barney was? To those of us of a certain age who were brought up on “steam” radio the weekly Have A Go programmes hosted by Wil- fred Pickles from towns and villages across the land were a staple diet. The show ran from 1946 to 1967 “introduc- ing the people to the people”. The producer in the 1940s was Bar- ney Colehan, who moved into TV and produced the BBC’s The Good Old Days for 30 years...but who was behind Bar- ney? Did you know that it was the Wom- bwell’s own Jean Auty? Jean, who died in hospital aged 89 af- ter a battle with cancer, was a stalwart of the Wombwell Cricket Lovers’ Socie- ty...but much more than that. She held the flaming torch as we stood firm at the barricades during our darkest hour. Jean Slater, as she then was, left school to join the BBC in Leeds as a secretary, and became what nowadays would probably be called personal as- sistant to Barney Colehan. She would have needed interpersonal as well as secretarial skills to field all the calls from those seeking a slice of the BBC’s action. She spoke little of the rising stars she would have known in those early years, but she particular remembered Robert Donat, whose films included the pre- war version of The 39 Steps , Goodbye Mr Chips and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness as well as much BBC work. She met and married Jack Auty, a BBC engineer who was to become Controller of Central Services, and they moved to BBC Scotland before eventually going down to the “Doughnut” as the BBC Tel- evision Centre in London was called. For Jean domesticity took over as she gave birth to Jane, Jackie, Louise, Gillian, Sa- rah who has sadly died, and James – the only boy but a cricket lover like his Dad. Jack retired at Christmas 1986, and the couple moved back north – com- plete with Jack’s library of more than 1,000 cricket books -- to the house on Silkstone Golf Course, which Jean was to treasure for the rest of her life. She took up the game...but her real love was the bridge table. One of the first things Jack and Jean did was to join the Wombwell Cricket Lovers’ Society, but within a year Jack had died. Jean stayed with us, proud to be a member of the Wombwell, and she always enjoyed the meetings and mixing with fellow cricket-lovers. Jean was invited to become a mem- ber of the Society Committee, and we now fast-forward to January 29, 2007. Your Committee met for the first of nine meetings that year that followed the disclosure that the bulk of the Society’s assets had, in effect, died. In the wake of the trauma of those months our financ- es have been run strictly in accordance with the Charities Act, even though we are not a charity...but it was not so up to 2007. We paid a high price for our na- ivety. We were mercilessly exposed, and we could have died. Our debt to the Ardsley House Hotel alone ran into four figures. Never bom- bastic, but always quiet and authorita- tive, Jean listened to all this. “This is dis- graceful,” she said, quite calmly, “to owe that money to the hotel. I will call round there in the morning myself and clear that off.” The torch was flaming. I interjected. There were 10 of us in that room, and we would raise £250 each, either in do- nations or long-term loans. With £2,500 in the kitty we could pay off our debts, hold our heads high, and start to plan a future. There were some acts of out- standing generosity, and by the Annual General Meeting in September more members were joining in and it was all systems go. The rest is history, and here we are today. I am proud to have manned the bar- ricades with such Wombwell stalwarts as Jean Auty. Obituaries Jean Auty, a stalwart committee member of the Society over many years died in October 2019. Our Chair- man, James Greenfield pays his own personal tribute to a dedicated Society servant… Have A Go! JEAN AUTY 1930-2019 Obituaries Jean Auty