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Hi Eggy,and Pete! Forst off! ...A "Cyevil" [slang],spelt and pronounced correctly,in Queen's English,would read as "Cavil" ,and sound like "Kayvil". A Cyevil was any place of work in a seam,for the Pieceworkers,i.e. Coalfillers,Caunchmen,Coalcuttermen,"Pullers"..[or,at some pits].."Bumpers",[who advanced the conveyor belt into the new facetrack each day,after the coal had been cut,drilled and fired doon,and filled off onto the conveyor belt],Drillers,and in the days before longwall faces and conveyor belts,you had the Putters,and Drivers. Before mechanical coalcutters came alang,you had what is depicted on my photo of Wor Auld Chep,aged 14,and he's old Marra the Hewer. The Hewers literally "Hewed" [picked] the coal down from the solid seam,and filled waiting tubs,to which the Putter would either "Hand-put" [push by hand],or hang his pony on and take the tubs out to a landing. Aal the putters in the different flats,[or "Cyevils"],would dae the syem,until there was enough tubs to make up a "Set",to which the Drivers would hang thier horse onto,and tek the sets oot ti thi shaft bottom...["Thier"? ..or "Their"?!!!] When longwall faces came alang,ye had the Caunchmen etc,as aforementioned. So!...because conditions varied throughout the pit ,wet seams,and coalfaces,dry seams,but with raggy roof-stone or floor-heave,generally bad conditions,and some with what miners would say was "Stannin' like a Palace..",it was only fair to have a means of giving every worker a fair chance to take the gud wi thi bad. It became practise to to "Draa the Cyevils"..[Draw the Cavils],every "Quaata",[Quarter],which was the 13 weeks referred to in Jack's poem. All the workers' "Tallies",[pit safety tokens with each man's number on],would be thrown "inti thi hat",[so to speak!],and a list of all the Cyevils available would be drawn up.[In categories to ensure the experienced workers were alloted to a cyevil in thier domain!] The person "Drawing" [picking out] the tallies,one at a time,would call out the name of the Cyvil first..."Beamont Seam,Forst North Mothergate Caunch[these would be drawn from the quota of Caunchmen] Then the Coalfillers Cyevils would be drawn next,the Cuttermen,Drillers,etc. Pete is right,as far as the Fillers go,cos they could Draw a good stretch of coal,nice and dry,gud roof conditions,meant gud money,or he cud draw a stinking wet cyevil,on the same face,further along,with faulted ground,[bad roof conditions],which meant slow progress....less money!! In the old arc-walls,with Hewers,if he had a stinking bad cyevil,nea money,then the putters and drivers suffered also,cos coal paid thier wages! At the end of each "Quaata",the last friday of the quaata was called "Shifting-gear-day". All the faceworkers brought thier picks shovels,saws,mels,and wativvor else they needed,out of the pit,cos they might draw a cyevil in another part of the pit a mile away!!,so they needed to have all thier gear ready to go with them to the new cyevil...wherever it might be.[they had to buy all their gear in the old days!] In a nutshell,it was virtually a raffle of job places!! Now,although the Cyevilling system was brought to an end with the introduction of the Power Loading Agreement,in the early 1960's,when Mechanisation took over coal production,there were still some Cyevills which were agreed as a "Bargain" with Management,long before the P.L.A. came along,such as the 6th North,in the Plessey Seam at Bates Pit,and the teams of Development [or "Composite"]men,were still on the old-fashioned "Piecework" agreement,making really good money,right up to the pit closing down in 1986! When Thatcher and British Coal brought out the new "Productivity Bonus Scheme",we all new it would put "Man against Man"...,and ..."Pit against Pit". It DID! Up to the pit closures,those who had a gud Cyevil,[or pit!],like Ellington,or the Nottingham pits,made fantastic money,and those who had rotten Cyevils,like those poor sods down the Three-Quarter Drift,at Bates,which was a heavily-faulted Seam,teeming in with Sea-water,and atrocious roof conditions,made NOWT! There was a time when the pit canteen lasses who were on the Area bonus,had forty times more bonus per shift,than my Marra's and myself,who had 90pence per shift sometimes,[due to really bad conditions],when ELLINGTON MEN WERE GETTING £100 PER SHIFT!! Now THAT was the unfairness of a modern "Bonus" scheme,compared to a century-old "Cyevilling" system,where at least,everybody was given a fair crack of the whip,and lads could,if they so desired,swap cyevils with another lad,if it suited them both. Sorry folks,but ye canna explain pitwark in one sentence!!,hope aav helped ye understand, Eggy! A just remembered,at Choppington High Pit,when aa started ,in 1959,the Coalfillers used ti "Bargain" with Management,by the whole team of fillers on each face,putting "Tenders"in,to try and get ["Win"] a good "Bargain price",for the next Quarter,when a new face was ready for production,and existing faces were being abandoned. Just like businesses,whoever put the lowest tender,got the FACE,albeit,at a bit lower pay,but better than Shift-work! At Choppington,we had 13 yards of coal per stretch,[ from 2'-3"..down to 18" high,and soaking wet bad roof]and,at Bedlington A pit,we had 9 yards of coal per filler,at 1'-10" to 2'-2" high. [and dusty dry,with a solid post-stone roof!]..this was in the 1960's don't forget!..hand-filling with a huge "George Rock" pan shovel!

Spot on HPW and in much more detail than I could have described it. Cyevlin was still actual at Netherton during the fifties. One little amendment, (in case anybody wants to look it up), the word is 'cavel' - with an e, not 'cavil' with an i but I dare say there was a fair bit of cavil going on as well. It's a dialect word and follows the typical sound changing characteristics of the North East dialect. Compare cavel/cyevil with table/tyebil or cable/cyebil. It came to Britain from New Zealand in the 1800's. I've no idea how or why. What a wonderful resource we have here with the likes of HPW and Vic to answer mining qestions!

"Bread and jam..." = Hard up!! [poor cyevil!] "Eggs and Ham"...= a canny pay.[gud cyevil!] Those were the days my Friend....!