Welcome to the Forum High Pit Wilma, Hope you enjoy yourself here.

Welcome to the Forum Wilma.

Welcome Wilma.

Wilma might possibly be a Fred, she/he hasn't said:

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Nor indeed is he/she required to. But... it's always possible to edit your profile!

Welcome anyway - it's not who you are, it's what you contribute!

Wilma might possibly be a Fred, she/he hasn't said:

• Gender
  Not Telling
  

Nor indeed is he/she required to. But... it's always possible to edit your profile!

Welcome anyway - it's not who you are, it's what you contribute!

I think I know who Wilma is Threegee, but we will wait for Wilma to introduce themself.

Hey hey Wilma hows Bam Bam

Heh heh!Bet Adam is reet n aal!

A used ti work doon Choppington B pit [thi high pit],from 15 yrs aad,and a played guitar when naebody played guitar at the pit,except a smashing natured fella caaled Jimmy Aitcheson.......and he played Haawian steel guitar...so that was different.A was the only one in a 300 man workforce,who played guitar.

SO!A tv cartoon series came alang caaled "The Flintstones",wi a straggly-haired skinny wifie caaled Wilma..........!

Noo!One of me marra's doon thi pit was a sarcastic sod,and me and him didn't get alang sae weel at forst reet?

So.....he thowt he wud start and caal me Wilma,cos a had lang hair,wat got aal straggly-lukking by the end of the shift,wi aal the droppers from the roof,cos the high pit was soaking wet aal owa....and he telt aal the lads that a lukked like Wilma off the Flintstones.

Whey,it duzzn't tek lang forra nickname ti tek ahaad doon a pit....So 54 years later......me marra's still caal me Wilma!

And that,dear friends,is the honest truth!Chris Arkle,who is the subject of another thread,used ti tek the mick

oot me lang hair summik rotten!![cos in those days it was always basin cut,short back and sides...but this was rock 'n

roll,and a was playing lead guitar in a pop group,so every pitman in the North-east and Durham knew Wilma!!!!!!

[it was written on the front of me amplifier cover!]

Well?Anybody twigged?

It's obvious i'm a Fred,cos a wudn't be on coal-filling and composite work etc,if i was a Susy.......!

The year was 1959 when i started High pit,me marra was a lad called Keith Cooney,from Barrington pit village,it was he

[who else?!]who christened me Wilma....and in a way,did me one hell of a gud turn,as the years went by.

Every week when the overtime shifts were being organised by the overman,Joe Barrat,and the Undermanager,Cyril Bird,it was Wilma's name who stuck in Joe Barrat's head,above all the other men who were screaming for weekend shifts!!!

Mind,i was a hell of gud worker,no bragging,i just was...so that was a key thing also.

NOW,anybody any wiser?....shall i leave this going till somebody tells me my name?..would it be bad manners...just a bit of fun?..i think not!

It's now after 1-0am,and i am shattered,so i will say gudneet to all you kind folks,and see you tomorrow night!

Cheers,from High pit Wilma!!

p.s. Check out "Bates pit photo's" on Flickr,or just type it into google,you'll see my ugly mug,...when i had hair.....!!!!

Er,before i switch off,may i say a big thank you for all your kind welcoming comments!

I have enjoyed browsing the forums the last few nights,and find it very educational,with the odd misplaced facts,but never mind,we are here to help each other out....

Goodnight this time...er...Hoggy,you,or someone close to you,were'nt a fitter at Bates Pit ,were you/they...down the Threequarter drift hell-hole?...if you were...you certainly know me!!

Wilma - what was the "Threequarter drift"? I know a drift is an inclined roadway (as in a drift mine) but what's the "Threequarter" thing? I went to www.dmm.org.uk looking for a definition but couldn't find one.

Er,before i switch off,may i say a big thank you for all your kind welcoming comments!

I have enjoyed browsing the forums the last few nights,and find it very educational,with the odd misplaced facts,but never mind,we are here to help each other out....

Goodnight this time...er...Hoggy,you,or someone close to you,were'nt a fitter at Bates Pit ,were you/they...down the Threequarter drift hell-hole?...if you were...you certainly know me!!

No I was not a fitter at Bate's Bill, i know you from Flickr, called Hoggy03 on it have had a good talk with you on it, however my uncle was also a fitter at Bate's I'm not sure if i told you over flickr and if he was down the threequarter drift, but you may know him, his name is David (Klanky) Maclean.

i knew clanky at bates a tall thin lad i started the three quater drift from the start till the finish of of it

Watcheor Marra's.....or....in prroppa spyeek,evening all!

Symptoms,the "Three-quarter R" was the N.C.B code name for the seam....another queer one was at Bedlington A pit,called the "Five-Quarter".

More commonly worked seams were the Beaumont,High Main,Main Coal,Yard seam,Harvey,and Plessey.

A Drift is an inclined roadway,taking you down,or up,as the case may be,to reach other seams,or sometimes to the surface...["bank" in pit terms.]

Lynemouth Drift was a good example.The steepest gradient i ever drove through,was a 1-in-2 gradient,that is,every two feet you went on a horizontal plane...you would rise one foot....not far from being vertical,and you had to pull yourself up using a rope tied to the girders,carrying a 50 lb box of Polar Ajax explosives on your shoulder...that was mighty hard work in itself,cos the floor wasn't like the pavements you know!

Hi Hoggy,sorry for not realising who you were...course i know you from flickr!

Ranger,if you were in the 'Quarter drift from the start,were you in the teams what shot the back drift oot from the 4th north road just past the south loader?....i was the Deputy on that job,i came back into the N.U.M in 1978 after 7 years on deputy-work.

Have you checked out my pics on Flickr?

I tried to put my avatar on my profile here but failed!

Hoggy was agreat fitter,and a smashing natured lad,like a lot of his marra's they were a good set,so were the electricians........hoo the hell have a gotten a bold font?.........a clicked the bold accidentally?.....sorry boot that folks!

Hello my name is Emma Arkle and i am juston wondering if the christopher arkle you have wrote about in your posts is the same person that received the British Empire Medal or is someone different?

thanks

Hi Emma!Chris may or may not have received the B.E.M.,but if he didn't,then he should have,in fact he should have received the Victoria cross!

I think he did other heroic acts of bravery rescuing men from roof falls of stone,but the one act i know personally,was when he virtually saved the life of

a miner called Larry Turner,who,until recently at least, was still alive and walking around Bedlington Station,albeit with a limp.

This event happened about 1963-4-ish.[give or take a year or two],down Choppington B pit..[the "High pit"],at the "loader -end",about 400 metres

along the roadway inbye from the shaft bottom,at the point in the roadway where coals were transferred from the conveyor belts which brought it from the coalface,into a hopper,which had a compressed-air-operated chute-door.

The pit tubs ran underneath the hopper,the "loader " lad opened the chute door using a lever to operate the rams,and the coalswere then loaded into the tubs from the hopper.

It only took a few seconds to load each tub,so the "set" of tubs were continually pushed along under the hopper,by compressed air rams acting on the tub axles.

Tubs were brought inbye from the shaft bottom by an endless rope hauler,and when each "set" of three tubs reached the loader-end,they were

automatically detached from the hauler rope,and allowed to "free-fall" down an incline, running quite fast,and then "bump-stopped" behind the sets of tubs being loaded,with a hard and loud bang,as the tubs buffers met each other....like railway trucks scaled down.

On this day,Larry was standing near the set being loaded,and apparently lost his footing,on the rough ground,which caused him to be off-balance.

His leg went in front of the buffers of the standing set,and a moving set of tubs came down upon his leg severely crushing it.

When Chris cut Larry's rubber wellington boot off,it was full to the top with blood,in seconds...and this was Larry's life blood.

Chris acted with the speed of a cat,and tore his shirt to make bandages,and with quick precision,put a "tourniquet" [ torn-a-key],around the top of Larry's thigh,so stopping the flow of blood from the crush injury.

Larry was just about unconcious by then,and Chris dressed the injury best he could,with improvisation,[ no ambulance station underground in them days you know!]

Larry was taken to the surface ,carried on a stretcher,and rushed to hospital,where surgeons saved his leg.

They said that if Chris hadn't acted so quickly,and efficiently,Larry would certainly have died with loss of blood and shock.

It has taken 50-odd years,and the power of modern technology,to tell just one story of this remarkable man,who was very well-liked by all the miners at the pit..and that's a fact..no dressing up with nostalgia here..anybody alive who knew him would confirm this.

Sorry,Emma,if i have digressed a bit,but that's me!...if i have to say something,i have to say it!

I hope Chris was your relative,and if he was,then i hope you will be proud of him,i always was,and he was my gaffa!!

The only other miner i knew who received the B.E.M.,was a neighbour of mine,whom i first got to know at Choppington

High Pit,in 1959.He was a shaftsman,by the name of Jimmy Foster.

When the High Pit closed,in 1966,Jimmy went to Bedlington A pit,as i did also.

One day Jimmy and his Marra,Sid Cole..[two smashing blokes],were taking arched girders [roof supports]from one disused seam down to the shaft bottom,salvaging so to speak.

Sid travelled in the pit cage,alongside the girders also in the cage.

On the fateful day,the girders became dislodged from their secure position in the cage,and caught the shaft wall as the cage was travelling down the shaft...stopping the cage instantly,in the middle of the 1000feet-deep shaft.

When Jimmy,who was in the disused seam entrance,further up the shaft,saw the cage rope go slack,prematurely,he knew then that something was wrong.

He then reached around the shaft wall and clung onto the cage "skeets"..[guide rails],which were heavily coated in thick black grease,and proceeded to climb more than forty feet down the shaft,and somehow got into the cage,to find

his close marra,Sid Cole,fatally injured by the girders which had slipped from their position.

Jimmy never got over it,and had flashbacks until he himself passed away.

This was the most death-defying, [terrifying, to most miners],act of bravery i have ever come across.

Just looking down a dark pit shaft,and travelling at speed in the cage,makes you realise how brave a feat this was,apart from the sheer physically demanding effort it would have taken,and you never ever,want to be a shaftsman.

Maybe this may have been the "someone else" you have heard about,Emma.

There were countless acts of bravery among the miners,most went untold..sadly.

Hoggy,your Dad was one of those Shaftsmen,who might have known Jimmy Foster,ask him.

It cannot be co-incidence that all the Shaftsmen i ever knew were all especially canny blokes.....

To all who come on here,please check out my pics of Bates pit,including one of the Two Shaftsmen,standing on top of the cage,ready to go down the shaft,slowly, to carry out their daily examination of the condition of the shaft walls and other things like power cables and water pipes,as well

as maintenance of the cage "skeets"....makes me go AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! every time i see it myself![i'm a self-confessed coward...it wouldn't be me for a pension!]

Hoggy,your Dad was one of those Shaftsmen,who might have known Jimmy Foster,ask him.

It cannot be co-incidence that all the Shaftsmen i ever knew were all especially canny blokes.....

To all who come on here,please check out my pics of Bates pit,including one of the Two Shaftsmen,standing on top of the cage,ready to go down the shaft,slowly, to carry out their daily examination of the condition of the shaft walls and other things like power cables and water pipes,as well

as maintenance of the cage "skeets"....makes me go AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! every time i see it myself![i'm a self-confessed coward...it wouldn't be me for a pension!]

Hi Bill asked my Dad, he can't remember Jimmy Foster, what did he do at Bate's?

However my uncle was also a fitter at Bate's I'm not sure if i told you over flickr and if he was down the threequarter drift, but you may know him, his name is David (Klanky) Maclean.

Please note I and my Family are not like him, for those who know him.

Noo Hoggy,aam gaana slap ya wrist when a see ye,for asking what Jimmy Foster did at the pit,cos ye mustn't hae read me story aboot him!!

[Mebbe a gaan on a bit,and it got too boring ti tek in....!]

Seriously,Hoggy,Jimmy did what your Dad did,he was a shaftsman at Choppington High Pit,then Bedlington aad Pit,and a canna mind if he went ti Bates Pit after that.

Lone Ranger,give me a clue as to what team you were in,cos if you started the Three-quarter from the start,iv'e

narrowed you down to either the Morton's team,or Six-o-clock Geordie's team.[taking the Deputies into the equation also....and that's not many men to choose from.

Noo....why "Lone Ranger"......hmmm!!

Or do you consider the "start" to be the first Coalface that went away?[which wasR21's]...well that's a different matter!

Reason i am curious is just that as the Deputy who blasted oot the very first breaking-in shots to start the back-drift,just inbye from the Sooth loader,i only had three men on that job in my shift...Tom Hindmarsh,Keith Calvert,and Geordie Palmer.

I lifted the whole of the loader end cabin and console and pushed it over and along it's girder-cradle,with the blast from the shots!!![me lugs were ringing in more ways than one,that day,cos the loader lads nearly died wi fright...!]

Happy days!

Hoggy,Clanky was a canny lad,when i was a deputy,he used to be one of my fitters.

Noo Hoggy,aam gaana slap ya wrist when a see ye,for asking what Jimmy Foster did at the pit,cos ye mustn't hae read me story aboot him!!

[Mebbe a gaan on a bit,and it got too boring ti tek in....!]

Seriously,Hoggy,Jimmy did what your Dad did,he was a shaftsman at Choppington High Pit,then Bedlington aad Pit,and a canna mind if he went ti Bates Pit after that.

Hi Bill, sorry about not reading it right, asked my dad there was nobody called Jimmy Foster worked on the Shaft at Bates, there was Ronnie Foster (Shaft Fitter) and Les Foster but no Jimmy.

i started and completed the downward three quarta drift and also the rising back drift one name i can recall was george palmer

Hi me owld marra! Aye, right,Jimmy probably retired when the Aad pit closed.

Cheers Hoggy.