Aroundtown Magazine May June 2023 edition

MEETS
meets
Cynthia Shaw MBE
When a letter from the Cabinet
Office came through the
letterbox at her home in Harley,
stating that she was to be made
a Member of the Order of the
British Empire in King Charles’s
2023 New Year Honours List,
Cynthia Shaw put it down in
semi-disgust.
Thinking it was a scam, she grumbled that
they had another thing coming if they thought she
was handing her bank details over that easily. But
on second reflection, she realised the paper was
actually quite posh, so she phoned the Cabinet
Office to check its authenticity. Well, as she rightly
says, you can never be too careful these days.
“I told them someone purporting to be from
their department had sent me a letter saying I
had been awarded an MBE. When I gave them
the reference number, they asked me if I was
“
I’ve had a charmed and
comfortable life, but
much of it has been spent
feeling responsible for
others and responsible for
providing for myself.
”
indeed Mrs Cynthia Shaw. That flummoxed me a
bit. Then I made a fool of myself by asking if they
had the right person. They reeled off some of the
things I’d been commended for and I couldn’t
quite believe it myself. It humbles me beyond
belief. There are millions of volunteers out there
who never get recognised, so why me? How’s
that happened?”
But Cynthia Shaw is not a woman to be
underestimated. ‘This MBE thing’ as she calls it
when we meet, for services to the community in
Rotherham, is so richly deserved for a person
who has spent her life advocating for others. If
you looked up the word stalwart in a dictionary,
Cynthia’s picture would be there.
“I don’t like injustice and I won’t be beaten.
Someone once told me I’d have made a good
Suffragette, but I wouldn’t have gone on hunger
strike as I like my food,” she laughs. We’re
tucking in to fruit scones and cream filled pastries
while we chat, made fresh that morning especially
4 aroundtownmagazine.co.uk
for our visit.
Across her eighty-plus years on earth, there
aren’t many people she hasn’t supported.
Miners, pensioners and the disabled are just a
few to have had Cynthia in their corner, going up
against politicians and Prime Ministers in her fight
for better outcomes.
Her working life was spent as a woman
shattering glass ceilings in a male-dominated
industry. She worked for the National Coal Board
for over 35 years, first in the wages office at
Rockingham Colliery before moving to the NCB’s
pensions and insurance service when the pits
closed.
Then two heart attacks when she was 50
changed her outlook on things and she retired
the following year. But she certainly didn’t put her
feet up.
Cynthia has spent the last thirty-odd years
volunteering as a magistrate, parish councillor,
public governor for Rotherham Hospital, and
trustee of Wentworth Charity. She’s also tirelessly
campaigned for almost fifty years to improve for
road safety on the A6135 from Chapeltown to
Hoyland that sits directly behind her house.
Even now, she never stops. Her diary is more
or less full every day with meetings or gatherings.
When we met, she’d just finished making jars of
marmalade and knitting a pile of dishcloths for
the raffle at Harley Mission Rooms’ charity Easter
fair and tells us how she’ll be serving up pie and
peas for 30 of the village’s old people the next
day. She’s 83 herself.
“Sometimes I forget how old I am but my
mam used to say, ‘Allus get up wi’ a purpose’.
When I was working I had time for nothing. Then
after I retired I still had the energy and ability to
help others.
“I’ve had a charmed and comfortable life, but
much of it has been spent feeling responsible for
others and responsible for providing for myself.”
Born in August 1939, just before the start of
the Second World War, Cynthia spent her early
childhood in a two-bed house in Wroes Yard,
just off Queen Street in Hoyland Common. Her
neighbour was A Kestrel and a Knave writer,
Barry Hines, who she went through school with.
Like many families during the war years,
money was tight. Her dad, John Brammah,
worked at Rockingham Colliery and mum Edith
was a housewife who looked after Cynthia and
her two younger siblings, Peter and Denise. The
house was condemned but the family was only
rehoused once they were classed as ‘morally
overcrowded’ – when Cynthia reached the age
where she needed a bedroom of her own for
privacy.
John was a union rep at the pit, which is
probably where she gets many of her qualities
from. He was strong but fair. He’d been injured at
work but never relied on handouts or free school
meals. He instilled in his children great work
ethic, with all the Brammah brood having jobs
from being kids.
But Cynthia was a bright girl. She passed her