Lives In A Landscape

Alan Dein travels to Elsecar Park, Barnsley.For the past 4 years it has been home to Francis McDonald who both runs the cafe and acts as unofficial park keeper. This was once called 'Elsecar by the sea'. Day trippers from Sheffield and hordes of local children from the pit village would play and swim in its reservoir. There's a wrought iron bandstand, a modern playground and the water still laps against the shore. In the last of the golden autumn sun, with eddies of brown leaves skittering around, it is a place of quiet beauty. It seemed like a paradise when McDonald opened the doors on a world he had known since his childhood. But gradually it became a kind of lonely hell. Now this will be his last autumn and the house on the hill will fall silent and shuttered. Producer: Mark Burman.