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Barnsley plaque for Barry Hines who inspired Kes film

BBC Barry Hines in 1984BBC
Barry Hines, pictured in 1984, died at the age of 76 in 2016

The author of the book that inspired the film Kes has been honoured in his home town with a blue plaque.

Barry Hines, born near Barnsley, is best known for his novel A Kestrel for a Knave on which director Ken Loach based the film.

The plaque adorns a house he once lived in at Hoyland Common. Hines died in 2016 aged 76.

Loach said: "I think it's a brilliant memorial. Barry wouldn't have said much, but underneath he'd be chuffed."

The director praised Hines' writing: "He had a gift of penning a few lines of dialogue and you knew the character.

"He was a brilliant writer; he could always capture the rhythm and comedy of local speech... and underneath was the complexity of people's lives."

The Yorkshire Society The plaque unveilingThe Yorkshire Society
A brass band led spectators to the plaque unveiling in Hoyland Common
The Yorkshire Society The blue plaqueThe Yorkshire Society
Barry Hines was born in Hoyland Common and the plaque was unveiled on a house he lived in the 1970s

Hines was a teacher before turning to writing and publishing his first novel, The Blinder, in 1966.

His second novel - A Kestrel for a Knave - about a young working-class boy named Billy who finds and trains a kestrel, was published in 1968 and filmed the following year.

Barry Hines' novel which inspired the film Kes is now 50 years old.

Hines also wrote Threads, a 1984 BBC film that dramatised the effects of a nuclear strike on Sheffield, and a TV play, The Price of Coal.

The Yorkshire Society is a not-for-profit organisation that celebrates the county's culture and heritage.

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