James Scott Gunn
An abridged life
WEST CORNFORTH
A View of Life in our village from that reported by George Hudson.
Written by James Scott Gunn
I knew George Hudson in my early years up to about being 16 when inevitably we drifted apart due to growing up with diversified interests. From the outset for those who might wonder, George’s report was very accurate and he recalled many things about the village which I had long forgotten but nevertheless appreciated him having gone to considerable lengths to ensure that the physical aspects of the village were as I knew them and I can confirm them to be accurate.
I should mention at the outset that West Cornforth was more commonly known as DOGGY. Most people thought that the name derived from the multitude of dogs roaming the streets when in fact the name comes from a product a ‘dog’ made in a village forge and used in railway maintenance. Obviously, like any close knit community, while the location of shops and buildings were historically important they only skim the surface and do not reflect the people of the village. With hindsight I can now see the village had two communities within its boundaries: the religious and the non- religious. Distribution was 6 churches and 11 pubs; a very significant factor in understanding the social make- up of the village. I was a captive of the former but I managed to escape eventually. The religious contingent could generally be classed as ‘the great and the good’ while the others paid lip service to the various denominations depending on their day to day needs and dire straits they often found themselves in. Prayer was a last resort and more importantly – free!
My lot favoured drinking and gambling and generally living it up and though I was never more than on the fringes of ‘the lads’ my sympathies were with them as the ever present poverty had to be resisted within the limited funds available. They made the best of a bad job and set out to drink as much beer as possible and bet with abandon to win more money for more booze. In my limited time in their company it was a laugh a minute. Hilarious at times. Saturday and Sunday nights in ‘The Club’, men only, were the highlight of the week when it would seem the same men sang the same songs week after week amid under breath groans of “bloody hell, not him again!” Concert parties were engaged but if they weren’t very good they were unceremoniously paid off and sent packing to make way for the same old songs rendered yet again. I must mention Sunday mornings when the lads bad with the booze would assemble at the end of the High Street and set off to walk round the ‘mile’ to help clear bad heads and be ready for lunchtime opening. It was not uncommon for some to drink fourteen pints in the space of two hours then many would decant ‘down the wood’ to the pitch and toss school to try to resurrect some funds for Sunday night.
Like all mining villages characters abounded. I will only single one out, as George Hudson said to put them all on record would take too much of my time. Not too many of my contemporaries would choose likeable Abbey Mayhew as an example, and it is only now as I write he makes particular appeal because of his ability to send both men and women reeling with his directness. Foul language in mixed company, even in our rough old village was unknown. It would be fair to say that Abbey was one of the few examples in the village of sartorial splendour. He dressed immaculately and always wore spats, was well mannered, and a bricklayer by trade. Picture if you will a fine summer’s morning in the High Street with lots of women out shopping. Abbey on seeing a friend across the street would shout “f___in’ morning”. Or in the Co-op, “I see that Boyd-Rochford has brought two of his up to Redcar. He hasn’t f__in brought them all the way up from Newmarket for the good of his health mark my words”. Women shrank with embarrassment. The amusing part of all this for me was that Abbey seemed totally unaware of the F word and used it frequently in otherwise perfectly normal speech. In retrospect I find the shock and horror he created very funny.
Stop Press: I have heard today that there is nowhere in the village to get a bet on horse racing! Such a facility has existed for over 80 years the first half was done illegally by bookies runners who skulked round corners like criminals as our betters decided we were not fit to manage our own finances, which for many was true but it was their own choice!
No betting shop in the village s I think a significant indicator of the gradual improvements in village fortune. It is a far cry from the headmaster on Monday morning asking if anyone had any old shoes to give to pupils who could not attend school because they had no shoes to wear. Yesterday in the High Street it was difficult to find a parking place on either side of the road. Closing the mines hasn’t been the disaster many people forecast! As far as I can ascertain over the years 76 men and boys were killed at Thrislington Colliery! It may well be more.
Under private enterprise mine owners screwed their workers into the ground and would take a single penny off a wage packet at the slightest opportunity. Men worked in horrendous conditions which any standards would contravene today’s cruelty laws. When I wish to convey an idea of the things men had to do to earn, as they would say ‘a crust’, and in many cases it was not much more I quote Billy Mole. This man endured a job which in my experience was the worst I ever saw down the mine, and he did it for five years. People have been awarded the Victoria Cross for less. The simple inscription of the V.C. reads FOR VALOUR. Billy Mole deserved one!
Billy’s job was to transport pit props to the coal face along a tunnel that was never more than 3’6” high and eventually stretched to three quarters of a mile. The enormous pressure on the tunnel had forced the floor up on which was a railway line along which Billy had to push his little truck loaded with half a dozen pit props that were back breakingly heavy. He would load his props always careful that he did not tear his hands on razor sharp edges of broken girders. The rails were a miniature switch back one minute up, then tilted, and down and up and then tilted for what must have seemed to him like forever. Having loaded the props he frequently had to unload the props again after ten yards when his truck came off the rails. He could not load lift the truck on the rails otherwise. You can try to imagine it but without seeing his situation it cannot really be described in mere words. I have seen him repeat the loading and unloading thirty times before reaching his destination. He frequently worked seven days a week to keep the supply of pit props going. And I make no apology for repeating. He did this job for five years that I know of. It was war time and I calculate that his wage for seven days would be £2.50 maximum! At 14 my wage for working 6 days a week was 12shillings and 6 pence. – 62p. Since I knew no other I was happy to do that though whether the same can be said for Billy Mole I don’t know. I doubt it.
We didn’t know any better because we were trained to accept ‘God’s will’. It was our place in life and there would be a reward in heaven. The simple answer to that was – bollocks! Such was the power of religion that so many people seemed to accept it except for my lot! Getting stoned out of their minds at weekends was rather more tangible than heavenly promises. And who was to blame them?
Add our education to religion and we, the younger generation, were presented with almost unsurmountable barriers to a more civilized way of life. Our teachers were first class as George Hudson remembers. Our headmaster not to put too fine a point on it was a swine who terrorized kids and subjected them to inhuman canings. It has been my long held opinion that it was a great pity he wasn’t drowned at birth. I think that most of his pupils over the years would readily agree with that. I would like to correct George on one point when he says a large proportion of pupils went on to secondary school which was really the only way out of the mines for miner’s children. It was no more than ten per cent in any one year, I guess about eight or nine kids. Not that it appeared to do them much good as they all seemed to come back to working in the village with the boys back down the mine in admittedly bit better jobs. Fitters, electricians, surveyors and the like. I don’t recall anyone going to university it was by village standards akin to an elevation to the peerage. “He has his cap and gown you know” were quaint words uttered almost in reverence about a friend of a friend who had a university degree.
As a matter of interest, I have no doubt in my mind that in any given mining village and certainly in ours, twenty percent of children were capable of studying for a university degree. I think that the levelling process in society has at last given working class children an increased opportunity to go on to read for a degree. Unfortunately community pressures to conform to the old pattern of social values still hinders some children from achieving their full potential.
Such a waste!
Gardens and allotments were a solace in what was a rough old world. I was a regular visitor to the allotments and the flowers and produce grown were amazing. Sad to say they never succeeded in inspiring me to join the green fingered brigade.
I was led astray into backing horses when I was 14 by two men with whom I worked in the hope that my meagre pocket money might be stretched beyond my wildest dreams into affording, for example, a new bicycle. My friends are long gone now and they have cost me a fortune for following their example. Nevertheless, I look back on them with great affection. It was downhill all the way from there to the point where I have sat out in the snow playing cards and loosing what little money I had and this was the pattern that many of the village boys followed.
It would be easy for the reader to assume ‘my lot’ the boozing and gambling fraternity were in the majority but as in any community they were more noticeable because they made the most noise!
The Miners’ Institute ‘The Tute’ was the secular centre of the village, the alternative was church and chapel. The Tute was all things to all men. It was a refuge from screaming kids and irate wives. Old men, old before their time, sat and dozed the day away until the next meal time. The billiard fraternity trickled their money away while we in the card room lost ours with all speed! The Pidgeon Racers assembled there to set the clocks for their races and bet on the result – gambling again! All this gambling I’m sure was instigated because having so little money meant thought, well for what we have, very little, let’s take a chance and try to make it a bit more. As one man used to say “Imight as well be broke has have nowt”. However, amongst all this activity within these same walls was the reading room. It always had a blazing coal fire and a dozen daily papers so that men could, read, talk and weigh up the runners and riders for the day’s racing. It was also a place for thinking men, and a chat with some of them made you realise that here were knowledgeable men, quiet men, thinkers, naturalists, all entirely divorced from ‘my lot’. There were millionaires in that room had ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, been a competition in those days. Last but not least was the dance floor with a sprung floor which seventy years on is still as good as ever and dancers use it every week. Dancing was an overwhelming distraction for teenagers who should have been studying to better themselves at night school urged on by their parents. “But here be temptation” with burgeoning breasts, lovely legs and good looking girls. Night classes were no competition for the anticipatory pleasures of the flesh. Breaking out of this village fortress was next to impossible and when it came to choosing between short term enjoyment or long term earning potential there was no contest.
‘The Pictures’. We had two cinemas, in our small quiet village of about 3,000 people, each changing films three times a week. Dreams were there at tuppence a time, love stories, spectacular musicals, cowboys and horror. Not surprisingly they played to full houses most days of the week with a 70/30 split in favour of women. Despite money being short two hours of fantasy could do more good than one of Fred Ormston’s meat pies! Though life was hard, in the main due to lack of money enough to provide the basics of life it would be wrong to imagine everyone was miserable. Far from it, the mining community was resilient and cheerful. Without experiencing the community spirit which was present in all mining communities even as a child you could walk along the High Street and you knew who everyone was, what street they lived in and one friend of mine could tell you what kind of curtains they had at their windows, that is if they had any at all. Paper roller blinds were the most popular defence of privacy. House lighting was initially metered gas then electricity and people resorted to candles if they did not have a penny for the meter. Even as I write it is somehow hard to believe even though I lived with it.
Kids? We had a marvellous time. Bear in mind that we kids were blissfully unaware of our parents’ struggles. School wasn’t too bad as teachers were wonderful given that they must have known that children in their charge had little else facing them other than a lifetime down thee mines and ongoing poverty. They could so easily have thought “Why bother?” To their eternal credit they did all they could to educate us. Joe Chambers, a teacher mentioned by George Hudson read us ‘Treasure Island’. Even now 65 years on, I still remember the story in detail. We sat enthralled and couldn’t wait for next week’s reading. I would not like to be a child now living on a diet of television and burgers and fears of abduction by weird people. We as kids had the freedom to roam the woods and fields as we wished and it is true to say we knew every bush and tree in our area. And we knew the name of the trees, flowers and birds. Time have changed, on balance very much for our good, but kids do seem to miss out on some of our simple and inexpensive pleasures.
And what of the women of the village? Again the two factions were very much in evidence, the non- religious and the religious. I suspect the tolerance the men had for each other’s social life was not matched by the female factions in the village. Them and us was the order of the day and only in special circumstances would the two willingly mix. Births, deaths, and marriages and the like. ‘My lot’s’ wives were constantly hard up as the men were intent on pursuing their pleasures. Pigeon, dog and horse racing swallowed up a lot of the weekly income and these wives, often with a squad of kids, were over worked, underfed, but very few children were neglected. They were good mothers, and I know they would willingly go without for their children. One of my friend’s mothers looked sixty, I calculated later that she must have been no older than thirty five. Life really was a daily grind. Yes, the men worked hard in terrible conditions, but their day ended after eight hours. For women it would rarely be less than twelve hours. I personally know one man whose wife and three daughters had to get up at 3am to get his breakfast and see him out to work and there would be hell to pay if anything went wrong with the morning routine. When I was very young, about 4, our next door neighbour would get raging drunk ‘the horrors’ and mother and daughter fled upstairs while he was downstairs sawing the legs off their only table. The theory was that he thought he was down the mine sawing pit props to shore the roof up! If they came down to see what was happening he put them out of the house and there they stayed until kindly neighbours took them in. Tired of their moaning mother in law I saw two men take her prized possession, a piano, worth about £1.50, and smash it to smithereens in the middle of the street. A woman’s lot was not a happy one! Life was never dull for us kids! I often wonder what young women would do without hoovers, dishwashers and the like. They don’t really appreciate how fortunate they are.
We had two medical partnerships with one doctor residing in the village. Their attendance was available on subscription, at a guess, about three pence a week per family. They gave good service given the severe limits of medical knowledge and practice at that time. When I was five I broke my thigh and by the time the doctor arrived some hours later my left leg was fur inches shorter than the other. They put me on the kitchen table and while my uncle held my shoulders the doctor pulled my leg back to its proper length and set it in splints hastily cur from a weaving frame. Without an anaesthetic!!! I was screaming the house down while they did it! Today it would be sirens screaming and gentle traction to mend a broken leg. After about three months in bed that leg was never a moment’s trouble! Doctors at that time were probably the most affluent people in the community. My Doctor had two cars and his children went to private school. However, there is little doubt in my mind that our good doctors killed thousands who would and do survive today. One example: after an operation today patients are sitting up in a chair just hours after major operations. The old way was to keep them flat on their backs and they died of pneumonia. Nevertheless, the doctors were doing their best.
One thing that worries me is that they are still ‘doing their best’ but future medics will fall about laughing when they read about our modern day medicine. Not that I’m complaining, they have helped me to reach 75 which to my mind is getting on to be a medical miracle!
Lots of the village women hadn’t a single, decent dress to wear and rarely went out anywhere other than to shop and occasionally go to the pictures. Nearly all the married women I knew were seemingly lacking in spirit which was hardly surprising given the conditions they found themselves in; unremitting slog to make ends meet and husbands keen to be seen conforming to male patterns of behaviour. Obviously there were exceptions, notably the loud mouthed, but these women were so blatantly ignorant that they were regarded as beyond the pale even by village standards.
The ladies of the chapels and churches were a different crowd in as much that their husbands were more caring about the well-being of their partners. And it was reflected in a number of ways, their mode of speech was more refined, their children were better fed and cared for. They were better mannered, more genteel, so that the gap between my lot and theirs was quire pronounced. This of course gave rise to yet another division between them and us. A stuck up lot was the general feeling among the non-religious. While on the subject of food, it was even evident to me as a ten year old that girls who went away to work in domestic service soon had the sheen of well-being about them that village girls lacked. Good food and a better environment seemed to work miracles despite these girls working very long hours.
Sex, conception and birth were subjects which were strictly for grown-ups. We as kids were only aware that conversations between women neighbours ended abruptly or subsided into whispers when kids intruded on the scene. Trying to understand what they were talking about was very frustrating for the naturally curious!
Divorce? It didn’t happen. It was I imagine, unthinkable. Women were so totally dependent on their husbands. Where would they go? Who would keep them? Jobs for women, except for shop girls, were unknown. And the men knew it and traded on it. They could pretty well do as they wished and they did. ‘You made your bed and you laid on it’ and hard luck if it was uncomfortable. It was a long held philosophy in the mining community. For a girl to get pregnant was a sin of the first magnitude which would hang on her for the rest of her life. Fathers put their own daughters out on the street such was the disgrace brought on the family. To their credit my lot were more understanding. ‘Casting the first stone’ was not for them!
The churches, two RC and C of E and four non-denominational exerted a powerful influence on the village. The Catholic Priest and the Vicar, especially the former, had fear, restitution, hellfire and purgatory with which to threaten even the roughest of RC men to toe the party line. The Vicar as far as I could see was an arrogant little Scotsman who when officiating at funerals was totally devoid of sympathy and the coffins of the dear departed who were not members of his flock were left at the rear of the church while he conducted the service.
All the denominations, Wesleyan, Primitive Methodists and New Connections and the Salvation Army had, I estimate about forty per cent of the village who were regular attenders. Social lives were built around them. Naturally there were interdenominational jealousies and fault finding built on holier than thou attitudes. I was a reluctant recruit who sometimes attended chapel three times a day on Sundays. Later I found playing cards ‘down the wood’ on sunny Sunday afternoons much more entertaining and usually more expensive than a penny in the collection box!
One example of religious bigotry has remained with me all my life. Two young members of the Salvation Army, doing what comes naturally, were banished from the congregation when the girl became pregnant. Bear in mind too, that The Army was their life, to be driven from it was, I imagine just about the cruellest thing that could happen to them. After some months and some pleading it was decided that they should be readmitted at a price! They were both required to kneel at the altar in front of the Sunday night capacity crowd and beg forgiveness for their sins. Even know it makes me cringe to think of those two young people being humiliated in such a cruel and insensitive way.
George Hudson’s geography of our High Street and the shops and shop keepers cannot be faulted. But what of the actual people? My most enduring memory is that of Fred Ormston the butcher. One went into his shop with some trepidation, he wasn’t a fierce man but he enjoyed playing the part with us kids and woe betide any grubby fingers touching his scrubbed white counter, quick as a flash his knife would chop down just missing the offending fingers. His weekend window display was superb, almost a work of art. It was only in later years that I realised that Fred Ormston was a rich man in the way he indulged Jack his son to the point where Jack junior could afford an aeroplane. Fred’s brother Eddy, also a butcher, was just across the street in a more modest way, or so it appeared, but affluence was very evident in the house he lived in and a truly magnificent lawn attended by a part time gardener. Next door to Fred was Wilson Bell’s fruit shop, a wheezy fat man with a very fine opinion of himself which was more than matched by that of his wife. The reader should bear in mind that these are my childhood impressions. Even so, such impressions can be surprisingly accurate.
Next door again was Henry Close and his clothes shop, Next door again, a pub, pubs and landlords were never a part of my life. Then Bell’s fish shop. What a dump! A dark cavern of a place. It was huge, or appeared to be, at least four times bigger than any of the other four fish shops in the village. Mrs Bell was a fat lady who seemed to be permanently in a tizz. But fish could be had for a penny and chips a half penny so it was easy to forgive any other deficiencies. As I recall only Fred Ormston’s shop was clean and efficient, most of the others seemed to be struggling to make a living and shelves were never more than sparsely stocked. Then there were the Santis ice cream makers. The sons were persecuted beyond belief by Summerbell the headmaster. Goodfellow’s across the way father and son, dapper little men always in a hurry. Being tailors they were always immaculately dressed as our friend Abby Mayhew only they lacked Abby’s language skills! The Miss Egglestones, tall, gangly women were proprietors of a dress shop which I always imagined was a bit up market as they themselves were of the village hoi-polloi.
I’d almost forgotten Tom North the barber, surprisingly overlooked by George Hudson. I knew him by sight and reputation. He was a great advocate of the morning constitutional and we saw him every morning while on the way to school. He was brusque in the extreme, “get your bloody head over”, a caring barber would gently move his customer’s head to the required angle Tom was more direct in his approach to the tentorial art! He might deign to cut the casual caller’s hair and then again he might not depending on his mood. “Get your bloody head over”, a caring barber would gently move his customer’s head to the required angle Tom was more direct in his approach to the tentorial art! He might deign to cut the casual caller’s hair and then again he might not depending on his mood. “Get your bloody head over”, a caring barber would gently move his customer’s head to the required angle Tom was more direct in his approach to the tentorial art! He might deign to cut the casual caller’s hair and then again he might not depending on his mood.
The Co-op was almost an institution which paid a dividend twice yearly and I recall people saying that the ‘divi’ would bail them out of debt – again! It would seem that the certainties of today; death and income tax were the forerunners of yester year when death and debt ruled village life. Generations of families worked at the Co-op, it was a way of life just as the pit was for the majority. Co-op men had no great standing in the village and were deemed not to be doing a proper job, they were known as mere ‘counter lowpers’ due to the habit of counter staff jumping over the counter to reach products that were in sacks strewn across the floor. To walk around the end of the lengthy counter was wasting time! I was assured by a much respected uncle that one man cutting up a barrel of butter would get half a pound more out of the barrel than another cutting it up. They had an old overhead system of transferring cash to the office upstairs via overhead wires and metal cylinders. I never did understand how it worked but as a kid it was fascination to watch. When I was very young the Co-op transport was all horse drawn. In the summer the horses were turned out into a field and quite often the progress of this village empire ground to a halt when horses enjoying the grass and summer morning refused to be caught. This was a serious and frustrating business and I remember the men running after those huge draught horses. It was great fun for kids to watch. Our vocabulary of swear words was much improved too! Very occasionally they had to admit defeat and village commerce was ‘put on hold’. A notice was displayed saying “No deliveries today we cannot catch the horse”. Or, as they say today “the computer’s gone down”. Mr Cooke was the store manager, a quiet round shouldered man with a moustache. He was one of the luminaries in the village much respected but a mystery to the likes of me. A man of few words or as far as I could gather, none.
The Butchery Department overseen by a Mr Waite, a jovial man of about twenty stone. Waite by name and weight by nature you could say. I never remember going into the co-op and seeing the kind of display as seen in Ormston’s or Jackson Sweeting’s.
We had a bank in the village where as far as village workers were concerned it was rumoured that’s where money was kept. I never met anyone who had been inside to see if it was true.
I think it is fair to say that shopkeepers were one step up from villagers in general and while I was aware of a hierarchy they were really outside my social circle as none of them played cards in the ‘Tute’! The only ones I remember were the Egglestone sisters who lived in a very fine house on the Village Green. Village society was layered in many ways with the professions, i.e. the doctors, clergy, solicitors and teachers being educationally superior to the rest of the village. When I was working down the pit the local chemist wouldn’t have given me the time of day. Somehow, probably through my doctor, he learnt that I was at teacher training college and a future professional. From that day on he made a point of serving me personally where before I was one of the great unwashed! Pathetic really! There was one distinguished looking gentleman who because of his appearance I always thought was the colliery manager. Mr John Gray, sometime professional musician, who owned a Peugeot sports car in 1919 when most of the villagers wouldn’t have known whether a Peugeot was a car or a breed of cow. John Gray I later discovered was the foreman of the lamp cabin, who, some years on had ‘the misfortune’, his words, to employ me as his apprentice tin smith. It was an explosive relationship. Only occasionally did we agree on anything and me being only fourteen he was not pleased when I did not follow his instructions to the letter. He often exclaimed that if I was put in a paper bag I would have difficulty getting out! This usually occurred when I decided I could see a better way of doing things which broke with tradition. John was a volatile man and unfortunately so was his apprentice! Regardless of our many upsets it was all great fun for me. I genuinely liked John Gray.
Deaths in our village were almost a daily occurrence. It was a good healthy business to be in! We had our own village undertaker and general handyman in Benny Cook, a thin, little man with a grey, walrus moustache. Walking ahead of the hearse in his battered silk top hat whether he was sad or not he looked it! He had premises an old shack really, at the end of the High Street and when kids had the opportunity to look through the grimy windows of his workshop there was always a coffin in the making, it was a sinister place. We only glanced in, in case some ghostly hand grabbed us in never to be seen again!
All funerals were grand affairs in every mining village. Everyone who could attend did, with the result that a cortege could be four deep and quarter of a mile long. Bob Wilson and Jack Riddell owned hearses and carriages for the chief mourners. The hearse, all figured glass and beautifully polished was very impressive while the carriages were old and inside they were so dark the mourners themselves would have wondered if they had died!
I can just remember ‘the bidders’ people, often neighbours, who were engaged to visit every house in the village and invite them to the funeral. Black was a popular colour because it served for funerals and other occasions, money rarely stretched to two decent outfits. And so to the church on the Village Green with the Reverend Fenton Ffyffe officiating. I was only a kid but he always gave me the impression he could be burying parsnips or people and it didn’t seem to matter much either way. After the committal, if it happened to be ‘one of my lot’ his pals went straight across the Green to thee Square and Compass and had a good booze up and reminisced about the dear departed and his exploits in life. It was a sobering affair when everyone got drunk.
A chance encounter with an old work mate revealed that my paternal grandfather’s headstone was to be seen in the church yard, this was something which never occurred to me because the cost of a headstone in the circumstances would be unaffordable. He died in a tragic accident leaving my grandmother with seven children, five boys and two girls aged one to twelve. Standing at the graveside trying to imagine the plight my grandmother was left in, in 1901, was impossible really. Somehow or other she had to find the money for a headstone. Obviously, it had to be on hire-purchase or whatever it was called in those days. I imagine it would be a disgrace not to put up a head stone even if it could be ill afforded. She was a proud and independent woman, she must have been to overcome such an arduous task. It is another example of the plight of women in the village.
The grinding poverty of that time had not advanced all that much thirty years on around 1935. As I mentioned earlier some kids still had no shoes in which to attend school!
It was a very good day when the pit finally closed though not many thought so at the time! From that point on community spirit born of shared hardship was in decline. Funerals with 200 people in attendance are long gone. Four of the six churches no g exist and remaining congregations are only a small fraction of what they used to be. Rewards in heaven cut little ice these days! ‘Vicaring’ you might say is a dying occupation! What would Benny Cook make of cardboard coffins and the dear departed whipped off to chapels of rest minutes after their last breath? Could he be turning in his grave one wonders? Undertakers using calculators and computers and none of them knowing oak from elm. Could he be muttering through his moustache “Uh, and they call themselves undertakers?
The village I grew up in is long gone. As a boy I loved it. Working in the mine for twenty two years in one way was a privilege in so much that the people I worked with were largely responsible for pointing me in the right direction and encouraging me to believe that I could do better. What I have written only scratches the surface of village life and in no way does justice to all the characters and worthy men and women it was my privilege to know and work with.
James Scott Gunn
May 25 2001
Also written by James Scott Gunn in 1967
‘Ton Up ‘means Time Up For Doggie Pit
Thrislington Colliery, West Cornforth, ‘Doggie’ to many will close next month after one hundred years of almost non-stop production. Because it was comparatively small, it was never more than a second division pit, hardly worth mentioning really. Some of the giants of the industry have produced more coal in a mere fifteen years.
Thrislington probably made the headlines only twice in its history, both before the First World War.
Once when there was a plague of black clocks in the pit and the men unable to bear the stinking mass any longer came out on strike.
The second time was when the pit head burned down in 1911.
Sunk in 1867 this hole in the ground has gushed the black life’s blood of the village for a century. It was often stained with the red of the real thing. But death was not greedy, he only took his normal cut an average of one life for every year. Compared with some pits it has been lucky.
But a pit is more than just a hole in the ground. It is a place where generations of men have struggled to wrest a living from uncompromising rock.
Was there ever a happier team of men than the Thrislington miners? I doubt it.
A Tangible Thing
I could be biased of course but I know many men who came to work here from other pits and other industries and without exception found camaraderie there. It was something they had not experienced before, indeed had not thought possible.
The ‘togetherness’ was almost a tangible thing that evolved from the unusual number of ‘characters’ that worked there over the years, they were the cement that bound the whole together. Men like Old Guinness, Cuck, Timmer Bill, Gemmel and more recently Stegger, Andra and Bull, to mention only a few.
Once met; never forgotten. It was their good natured ‘jig’; tales or habitual grumbles that made for me, and many more, the unbearable, bearable and sometimes even enjoyable.
Even the districts had names to conjure with; Tea Rubber, Fourth Dip, Seventeen, Millers Drift. There was one called the pump board. Can you imagine a pump board? As a kid I often heard the big lads talk about it and I couldn’t wait to see it for myself.
I imagined it as something like a huge dance floor with pumps about it fighting the dark and frightening flood. I was a bit disappointed when I did go there. It was like most of the other districts, a series of tunnels which bewildered me with their complexity. It wasn’t even wet. Dry and dusty in fact. The dark flood appeared to be no more than a capful of sad water with a clapped out pump standing guard over it. So much for imagination.
Mixed Blessing
I think I learned more from the men at Thrislington than I ever did at school. It was an uphill fight for old John (Gray) but he finally convinced me that there was more to music than the ‘pops’. Billy loaned me poetry books. Tom knew about art and had his own exhibitions of drawings on the roof in the Low Main.
Les and Joe taught me to back horses – a mixed blessing this – it was a while before I discovered they were not the experts I thought they were.
Fred and Jack advised me on pitch and toss – always back tails on a windy day. I learned how to play Bridge in the Main Coal during breakdowns and bait times. Education was always expensive.
Arthur worked in the Baltic an odd name for a district. I never did discover how it came by it, he primed me with local history. When his memory failed him he went on Saturday afternoon refresher courses along to the churchyard to study the headstones. Things were rarely dull at Doggie. I went to work in the pits because there wasn’t much else those days. It was extremely fortunate for me that I chose Thrislington Colliery. Looking back, what made it outstanding I think was tolerance for the other man’s point of view. It was a good pit.