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Barry Hines
Melvin Barry Hines, FRSL (30 June 1939 – 18 March 2016) was an English author, playwright and screenwriter. His novels and screenplays explore the political and economic struggles of working-class Northern England, particularly in his native West Riding/South Yorkshire.
He is best known for the novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968), which he helped adapt for Ken Loach's film Kes (1969). He collaborated with Loach on adaptations of his novels Looks and Smiles and The Gamekeeper, and the 1977 two-part television drama The Price of Coal.
He also wrote the television film Threads, which depicts the impact of a nuclear war on Sheffield.
Hines was born in the mining village of Hoyland Common near Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire. He attended Ecclesfield Grammar School after passing the eleven-plus in 1950 and played football for the England Grammar Schools team. After leaving school with five O levels he took a job with the National Coal Board as an apprentice mining surveyor at Rockingham Colliery. A neighbour he chanced to meet at the coal face disapproved of his failure to meet his potential; Hines later said that was when he decided to return to school to take four A-levels.
After his A levels, he studied for a teaching qualification at Loughborough College. For his dissertation, Hines wrote a piece of creative fiction entitled "Flight of the Hawk", which later inspired his debut novel The Blinder. He worked as a Physical Education teacher for several years, initially for two years in a London comprehensive school and subsequently at Longcar Central School in Barnsley, where he wrote novels in the school library after the children had gone home. He later became a full-time writer.
Hines was a keen amateur footballer who played for Barnsley's reserves and was invited to a trial at Manchester United. He later played for Loughborough College, Crawley Town and Stocksbridge Works. He also represented England Schoolboys.
Hines' first published work was the play Billy's Last Stand, written while he worked as a PE teacher alongside his debut novel, The Blinder. A duologue between an impoverished coal miner and his manipulative business partner, it first appeared on BBC Radio Third Programme in 1965, with Arthur Lowe and Ronald Baddiley.
The broadcast of Billy's Last Stand found Hines a publisher for The Blinder, which was published in 1966. It follows a gifted teenage footballer torn between his sporting career and his academic aspirations. The novel was partly based on Hines' own experiences playing youth football, as he had played for Barnsley FC's youth team and was offered trials at Manchester United.
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Barry Hines
Melvin Barry Hines, FRSL (30 June 1939 – 18 March 2016) was an English author, playwright and screenwriter. His novels and screenplays explore the political and economic struggles of working-class Northern England, particularly in his native West Riding/South Yorkshire.
He is best known for the novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968), which he helped adapt for Ken Loach's film Kes (1969). He collaborated with Loach on adaptations of his novels Looks and Smiles and The Gamekeeper, and the 1977 two-part television drama The Price of Coal.
He also wrote the television film Threads, which depicts the impact of a nuclear war on Sheffield.
Hines was born in the mining village of Hoyland Common near Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire. He attended Ecclesfield Grammar School after passing the eleven-plus in 1950 and played football for the England Grammar Schools team. After leaving school with five O levels he took a job with the National Coal Board as an apprentice mining surveyor at Rockingham Colliery. A neighbour he chanced to meet at the coal face disapproved of his failure to meet his potential; Hines later said that was when he decided to return to school to take four A-levels.
After his A levels, he studied for a teaching qualification at Loughborough College. For his dissertation, Hines wrote a piece of creative fiction entitled "Flight of the Hawk", which later inspired his debut novel The Blinder. He worked as a Physical Education teacher for several years, initially for two years in a London comprehensive school and subsequently at Longcar Central School in Barnsley, where he wrote novels in the school library after the children had gone home. He later became a full-time writer.
Hines was a keen amateur footballer who played for Barnsley's reserves and was invited to a trial at Manchester United. He later played for Loughborough College, Crawley Town and Stocksbridge Works. He also represented England Schoolboys.
Hines' first published work was the play Billy's Last Stand, written while he worked as a PE teacher alongside his debut novel, The Blinder. A duologue between an impoverished coal miner and his manipulative business partner, it first appeared on BBC Radio Third Programme in 1965, with Arthur Lowe and Ronald Baddiley.
The broadcast of Billy's Last Stand found Hines a publisher for The Blinder, which was published in 1966. It follows a gifted teenage footballer torn between his sporting career and his academic aspirations. The novel was partly based on Hines' own experiences playing youth football, as he had played for Barnsley FC's youth team and was offered trials at Manchester United.