Value for Money

Filmed partly on location in the West Yorkshire town of Batley (given the name Barfield in the film), you know what you are going to get as soon as you watch that Salvation Army band marching up the cobbled market place in the drizzle and soot. Good fun for those of us who live in the town spotting the landmarks. Batley's a lot cleaner now, and the buildings are sandstone again instead of black - it still rains a bit though.

Chaley (John Gregson) owns a rag mill, the economy of the town for much of the twentieth century being based on recycling rags into reconstituted cloth known as either 'Shoddy' (now used as an adjective), or 'Mungo'. And he does what all Rugby League fans do once a year, and that's head south for the sport's Challenge Cup Final. Taking the local stories into account, the weekend trip is as traditional as ever, involving a lot of beer, food and going to clubs and pubs - and the final itself of course.

However, it's not usual for one of the girls in a club to follow you back north in the hope of parting you from your money - and that's when the fun starts in 'Value for Money', especially if you already have a girl back home who's 'sweet on you'.

Good-natured comic shenanigans follow that pulls the legs of stereotypical northerners and southerners alike. Luckily, the twain shall meet after a few plot twists and turns, and it all works out right in the end.

Note - Fifty years after the film was released, people in the town still sometimes refer to Batley as Barfield, and you can here the name being shouted from the terraces at Mount Pleasant (Batley RLFC's ground) on many occasions.

Eh, it's grim 'oop north.