Aroundtown Magazine January/February 2024 edition
Read the New Year edition of Aroundtown Magazine, South Yorkshire's premier free lifestyle magazine for Rotherham, Barnsley and Sheffield.
Read the New Year edition of Aroundtown Magazine, South Yorkshire's premier free lifestyle magazine for Rotherham, Barnsley and Sheffield.
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AROUNDTOWN<br />
Who we met in 2023<br />
You’ll never find a<br />
boring Q&A style<br />
article in <strong>Aroundtown</strong><br />
<strong>Magazine</strong>.<br />
Neither will you find an interview<br />
with a celebrity. We write articles the<br />
real way, telling the real stories you<br />
want to read about real people from<br />
South Yorkshire.<br />
Each year we set out to find those<br />
unsung heroes from our region who<br />
have gone above and beyond, often<br />
without much recognition. We make<br />
them our ‘<strong>Aroundtown</strong> Meets’ literacy<br />
victim and give them the chance to<br />
share their story in a ‘This is Your<br />
Life’ kind of way.<br />
Whatever their journey, we take<br />
the time to meet up in person, listen<br />
to their tales, and write pages of<br />
notes. It is always an honour to be<br />
trusted with these stories, to retell<br />
them in the <strong>Aroundtown</strong> way, and<br />
we hope our readers enjoy reading<br />
them.<br />
So, here’s a lookback at who we<br />
interviewed in 2023.<br />
<strong>January</strong>/<strong>February</strong><br />
Kelly Clark<br />
Talk about a woman who pushes<br />
boundaries. Kelly is a powerlifter<br />
from Rotherham who made her<br />
international debut at 54, just 18<br />
months after she started competing.<br />
She’s got medals of all colours to<br />
her name, proving that women of a<br />
certain age shouldn’t be held back.<br />
We spoke about why she started<br />
powerlifting and how it helped her<br />
lose weight and improve her painful<br />
arthritis.<br />
March/April<br />
Wilson Design<br />
Collective<br />
Identical twin sisters Louise and<br />
Caroline, from Doncaster, have<br />
had near mirror lives. After each<br />
forging successful careers as textile<br />
designers, the pair decided to pool<br />
their talents and start their own art<br />
business. We met them as they were<br />
preparing for their debut exhibition at<br />
Fox Gallery in Mexborough Business<br />
Centre to hear about going from<br />
womb mates to business partners.<br />
May/June<br />
Cynthia Shaw MBE<br />
There are always people you meet<br />
who leave a lasting impression on<br />
you. People you know will become<br />
friends. Cynthia Shaw is one of them<br />
for us. She welcomed us into her<br />
home like we’d known her for years<br />
and, to be honest, we didn’t want<br />
to leave. We spent hours listening<br />
to her life story, from growing up in<br />
Hoyland Common, working her way<br />
up through the NCB over 35 years,<br />
and spending the last three decades<br />
advocating for others. We were there<br />
to talk about her receiving an MBE in<br />
last year’s New Year’s Honours list<br />
and were delighted to see her finally<br />
receive her insignia from the King at<br />
the end of the year.<br />
July/August<br />
Dr Bijoy Mondal<br />
In the summer, it was the 75th<br />
anniversary of the NHS. So to<br />
coincide, we set out to find someone<br />
who had dedicated their life to<br />
healthcare. We found that person in<br />
Dr Mondal. He’s been a geriatrician<br />
in Rotherham for over 50 years<br />
and is still working at the age of<br />
82. He told us about coming to the<br />
UK in 1965 to be a doctor, moving<br />
to Rotherham ten years later, and<br />
single handedly managing hundreds<br />
of beds at six hospitals across the<br />
borough.<br />
September/October<br />
Tom Masters<br />
Our youngest interviewee last year<br />
was Barnsley musician Tom Masters.<br />
But even at 25, he already had more<br />
stories to tell than most. Tom’s<br />
singing career started ten years ago<br />
with Barnsley Youth Choir and he’s<br />
since gone on to be one of the area’s<br />
most in-demand musicians. Over a<br />
matcha latte (and a Yorkshire Tea for<br />
us) we spoke about overcoming his<br />
childhood nerves to finally join the<br />
choir, juggling the logistics of 280<br />
gigs in a year, winning £10,000 in<br />
the first Bank’s Got Talent, and how<br />
he planned to release new music<br />
in <strong>2024</strong> – something he’s since<br />
achieved ahead of time!<br />
November/December<br />
Billingley Christmas<br />
Tree Farm<br />
It couldn’t be Christmas without<br />
a festive themed interview. We’d<br />
already met Santa a few years ago,<br />
so this time we turned our attention<br />
to Farmer Christmas. Andrew<br />
Stenton and his family have run<br />
Billingley Christmas Tree Farm for<br />
the last 20-odd years, becoming a<br />
leading grower and retailer of these<br />
festive firs. While visiting the Dearne<br />
Valley site and seeing the farm’s<br />
reindeer and hundreds of trees,<br />
Andrew told us how the foot and<br />
mouth disease outbreak saw him<br />
turn his family’s Charolais cattle farm<br />
into a Christmas tree farm.<br />
Know someone whose<br />
story needs to be told?<br />
With six <strong>edition</strong>s a year, we’re<br />
always looking for our next<br />
<strong>Aroundtown</strong> Meets interviewee.<br />
You can send your suggestions<br />
to our editor, Amber for<br />
consideration, email amber@<br />
aroundtownpublications.<br />
co.uk<br />
54 aroundtownmagazine.co.uk
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