We hear a lot, particularly in the Chronicle, about Barnsley’s unsung heroes and forgotten figures from history, and quite rightly so – each of them is worthy of at least a photograph on the inside pages, if not a blue plaque on the wall of their birthplace.
Well, this week I’m bringing news of a totally forgotten historical Barnsley figure.
He’s someone who didn’t have a dramatic life by any means but who has made his mark on all our lives in one way or another.
I’m talking about Billy Boston. Billy who? You may well ask, to which I’ll reply, with a note of supreme confidence in my voice, Billy Boston, that’s who.
The name isn’t well known but if you’ve ever walked past a group of people digging up the road or been in a meeting in a public space and had a look around to see where the fire exits are, then you owe a lot to Billy Boston.
Let me explain: Billy was from Low Valley, between Darfield and Wombwell, and he was born in 1942. He was a strong lad and, like most of the men from that part of the world at that time, he was destined for a working life down the pit.
His younger brother, Bobby Boston, on the other hand, was the more dreamy artistic type, always painting and drawing and sculpting. As the brothers grew older their careers really diverged, Billy working at Darfield Main and Bobby setting up his own graphic design business, which specialised, because Bobby had spotted a gap in the market, in the world of informational signage.
You know the kind of thing I mean: GIVE WAY, NO LEFT TURN, ROAD CLOSED, that category of sign.
Because of his artistic training, Bobby knew that often a visual image combined with words very well to hammer home a message, and sometimes the visuals worked well enough on their own, and the words weren’t needed at all. His signs were renowned for the way they could convey a simple but striking message.
Then Bobby got a big job from an international firm who were making lots of new office and warehouse spaces and they wanted a sign that would show where the fire exit was.
Bobby came up with an idea for that sign we know so well: the figure running, as though from some flames. The figure, if you study it, is running with some urgency, and I can reveal that the figure is Bobby Boston and the reason he’s running so quickly is that his brother has set light to some piece of paper directly behind him and then photograph the scuttling sibling.
The firm loved the image that Billy made from the photo and Bobby’s fame was assured. Except that it’s an anonymous kind of fame because nobody knew who the running man was, and that suited Bobby because he was a private kind of guy.
Billy’s actual fame spread, though, and lots of businesses came knocking at his door with offers of work, amongst them the organisation that’s now known as the Highways Agency who were looking for a new road sign to show that people were working up ahead, so you should be careful.
Billy hit on the idea of showing somebody working with a shovel and, obligingly, Bobby agreed to be the model again. Connoisseurs of that sign will always point out that the working person in question is wearing boots and that’s because, on the day of the photoshoot, Bobby had his best wellies on. The rest, as they say, is history and Billy Boston’s name was added to the Barnsley ‘Hall of Fame’.
Wait a minute, though: isn’t that a bit like celebrating the Yorkshire pudding without celebrating the milk and the flour and the egg? In other words, there wouldn’t have been any world-famous signs without Bobby Boston posing for the photos in the first place. Shouldn’t he be in the hall too, rather than just waving from outside? I reckon we’ve got two new Barnsley icons here: Billy and Bobby Boston, the men who put the fire into running and the wellies into shovelling? A blue plaque each, at least, I’d say.
It's a nice story, isn’t it? I have to tell you that I made it up; but wouldn’t it make a lovely stage musical or a film? Over to you, Mr Spielberg…
