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Hi Wilma, thank you for the info regarding my dad. I didn’t know he worked at Choppington High Pit, which was about 3 years before I was born and dad would have been about 21. The amount of times I’ve walked Choppington woods and didn’t know about the antics which went on under my wandering feet. Someone once told me when down the pit, he could be stubborn, un-cooperative and would sit down in protest if things weren’t done his way. I only wish I could sit down and talk with him about the past but now has dementia and hardly speaks a single sentence. He doesn’t remember who I am or much of anything anymore. I remember his loft was a shack with CB and amateur radio's. As a kid, I remember the tv picture going crazy when DXing on amateur radio and CB am, this was before CB was legalized later on fm. Dad still has an amateur radio setup, which he never sat the test for, he was a bit of a rebel when it came to things like that. Dad looked after his things, especially the Lada, having coating it with Waxoyl to keep it from rusting. I got the impression he didn’t care much for the Lada in its later years. There was one time someone blocked his exit in a carpark so he just forced the other car out the way using the car's bumper. Lada cars were relatively cheap to buy and very basic, Russian engineering which was probably built in the same factory they made their tanks lol. Regards, Damian.

Hi Damien,welcome aboard!..I knew your Dad very well,you wouldn't have known,but in the mid 1960's he also worked at Choppington High Pit till it closed,in 1966.He might only have been there for a year,maybe two,he was coalfilling in the Top Busty with Harry [Harper] Dawson.Miners played pranks,and one day,in around 1964, I came off the very wet ,low,atrocious coalface to find your Dad and Harry ,stitching my jacket together with Conveyor belt metal hook fasteners.I remember them being startled by me shouting at them and swinging my jacket,still with the heavy zipping machine attached,round my head and hurling it at them!If it had hit them it would have really hurt,maybe even broke a bone or two..I was seething,but they thought it was funny..well by the time I got outbye to the shaft bottom we were all laughing at the state of my ripped old jacket..miners were like that..no fallouts..lose your rag for five minutes..Marra's just the same five minutes later. I was about 20 yrs old at the time that happened...Me and Mixer used to crack on for hours on the CB Radios from 1981 when they were legalised.In those days,I was into Electronics from 12 years old in 1956,so by 1981,and hooking up with Mixer on the air after not seeing him for years,was great cos he built power supplies for CB'S as his other hobby.So we talked transformers and resistors etc!!..Later he came to Bates ,and when he parked his new Lada in the car park,it always stood alone..he told me..there's no way anybody is gonna park too close to my car and block me from getting in .!![Waxoyl and dust kept not only rust away..it everybody away..including thieves!!] Mixer was the nicest lad you could wish to work with..please tell him Wilma is asking after him..if he remembers..he just might.Everybody knew Mixer..just like they knew Wilma!!Take care Damien.