By 'eck. I did some of my specialist training at Maltby Pit when I was an apprentice.

The place was full of surprises. It was as run down as an ex pit town when it still had one. I never played too many WMCs to be fair and I don't recall playing Maltby.

It was always one of the butt of my jokes on stage wherever I went though. Wherever I sang a traditional song with lyrics that scan better in a dialect, especially Scottish ones, I used to say that we can all enjoy the words now since (Dick Gaughan, Whoever) went for elecution lessons in Maltby. I often referred to it as a fine place to partake of a glass of Chardonnay of an evening.

I once said there was a shop in Maltby that sold greasy flat caps covered in NUM badges. Someone shouted that they had opened a branch in Dinnington. I love spot on hecklers.

Oh, and when an opencast nearby was subjected to a public consultation and there were concerns about how the land would be left afterwards, I had a letter printed in The Rotherham Advertiser saying they were going to throw a few dustbins and supermarket trolleys down it and call the place New Maltby.

Naw, I don't have a pop at Maltby. Like most Worksop based acts, I loved the place because you could use it as a stooge and every bugger laughed. I even wrote a monologue, which sadly is all but forgotten unless I come across an old folder some time, called "The AGM of The Maltby and District Pigeon Fanciers and Ferret down Yer Trousers Club."

If Paul didn't like the bit about eating their dead, I don't recommend listening. (But if you are the Paul I think you are, you MUST have heard me do it at The Boundary in Worksop many moons ago?)