HIGH PIT WILMA

"Greedy miners....." ........"Get the rats down their holes where they belong"..."The Enemy within.."........."..like sheep......" Aye,a bet the aad King and Queen didn't agree wi Churchill and thatcher-the hatcheter ....and their opinions of the miners!! Great article Eggy,and thanks for posting it! What the world also didn't know was that the Germans,AND the Japanese, had loads of miners [including my now-deceased old friend and neighbour..]driving the the Burma road through the jungle...[as well as all the other campaigns] My friend,Tommy, joined the territorial army,when he was 17 years old,with his pit marra's,"ti get a free holiday doon at Catterick in the summer,for a fortneet.." Within days of him joining,war broke out and he was sent for training in the regular army,and posted out to the war front. He was taken prisoner by the Germans,and worked in the German mines,then after escaping,was captured again by the Japanese,and put to work on the railroad. One funny story he told me,[cos he never told me about atrocities..],went like this..... The rail gangs came to a massive ,[and he emphasised MASSIVE!] ,tree,bang in the middle of the track-line,and halted progress. The Engineer in charge,had Tommy,and the other miners,dig holes around the roots..[in jungle heat and humidity!],and filled the holes with explosives. After firing the shots,the tree trunk was virtually unmarked. The tree was probably a Mahogany or similar tree,with a diameter of about 10 feet,and about 300 feet high....a BIG tree! After several attempts at firing it,and getting nowhere,the Army Officer-in -charge,started threatening the Engineer with his life if he didn't get things moving quickly. So the Engineer called the miners together,with spatterings of broken English,and asked Tommy how they would blow it up. Well,it was obvious to anybody who had experience with explosives,except this Engineer,who was brilliant at laying rails,and building bridges,but no good at blowing trees out of the ground.! Tommy,in his wisdom,saw a way to delay the effort,without failing the task,cos he knew if he failed he would be disposed of. One thing he did tell me was that the Japs wouldn't waste a bullet if they could kick you into a river to drown,or even leave you in the heat without water. So he told the engineer that they would undermine the tree roots,which would take a day or two,or three if Tommy had his way! When they had a decent sized hole made,the Officer wanted to blow the tree. Tommy insisted it was not deep enough,and got the go-ahead to carry on digging. After a few days,the Officer was becoming agitated,and ordered the tree to be blown. Tommy told the Engineer to fill the hole with explosive,and when the engineer had placed a small amount of Dynamite under the tree,and was going to fire it,Tommy stopped him,and insisted he would need to completely fill the whole cavern with Dynamite. The Engineer did so,piling box after box of powder into the cavern. When he eventually fired it,Tommy said that the ground shook for several seconds,like an earthquake!! When the reek cleared,and they all went back to see the results,Tommy said there was no sign of the tree,no branches,leaves ....nothing!! But there was an almighty crater where the tree had been!!! The Officer was pleased the tree had gone,but wasn't too happy about it taking a fortnight to fill it in with ballast...!! Tommy and his marra's probably helped our lads out a lot more than they realised,by creating the delay! When the rails came to a huge ravine,where the bridge was being built,near to completion,by other gangs of prisoners,the Officer was horrified to find that his rail track was forty yards down stream,from the bridge,out of line by miscalculation. The Officer went downstream and shot himself,out of humiliation. Well,he would have been shot anyway,by his superiors. "The Bridge Over The River Kwai",didn't include this episode.... Aye,there was some mighty clever and tough old miners in those days!! Tommy was liberated by the Americans,in a totally emaciated and mentally unstable state,as were all the other prisoners,basically worked to death. He carried on the rest of his working life,back down the pits,and was a really canny old neighbour to have. The kids nowadays need to learn and have some respect for these guys....but they never will....sadly....

Checking my post above,I meant to edit the part which says i have never read anything....blaa blaa... Of course I read,I just don't read newspaper tabloids,it is enough seeing the front pages of lies and trash,being thrust in my face,even in places like Aldi nowadays. It is like religion,you believe what you want to,but don't,[apart from sensible discussion,such as this....],thrust it in my face,or knock on my door,like Jehovah's do...which I consider to be a tresspass upon my property,as much as I would a thief. I have to laugh when I hear folk say...it was in the paper....[meaning it must be right enough...!!] Eh.....aam a simple-minded bugga,except when it comes to Scientific theory and discovery,Geology,Space investigation and travel,anything to do with the marvels of engineering on a grand scale,anything supernatural,spiritualism,occultism,oh......and Revelations,in the Bible..!!.....[666....!] ...not forgetting Coalmining....of course!!

Er......have we not strayed slightly off-topic here........[everyone turning a bit like me....heh heh!!!!] Well,seeing as I have never watched television or read anything other than the News Post Leader,[only cos it is shoved through my door!],for many years, I don't even know who this Fry chap is,or what he does,and have never heard of him. Does that make me a fool also,or uneducated?? Does anyone remember a big Tsunami a few years ago?....not man-made.....where the Arch-Bishop,as well as other leading church dignitaries,admitted that the disaster had made them.."question their own faith"..

Hi Seamus!...welcome to the forums,it's a brilliant way to spend an evening...!

I will have old E... asked when we [My Wife and me],next see her. She always mentions the sawmill,down Sheepwash bank,and the shop,but has never mentioned having the shop in Storey's Buildings,where I lived as a child,or I would have been all ears,and asking questions about it. I vividly remember,as a three year old,looking in the shop window,only a few doors away up the street,with my then six year old Brother,at all the sweety jars ....MASSIVE jars,they were....[or so it seemed!],and there was a small piece of glass missing from the bottom left hand corner,just big enough to wiggle your finger through,but sadly,to two hungry little kids,in 1947,not big enough to wangle even one sweety through!! We tried poking bits of sticks into the small hole,well,I should say , my Brother did,and I watched,desperately hoping he could get some sweeties,cos we didn't know what they were like......cos we didn't get any,cos Mother used to swap her sweet ration coupons,for food coupons,and now,thinking back,for cigarette coupons as well probably,cos both her and me Father both smoked all thier life.[priorities!] What a sad story!![.....cue violins....!] Every word true.

John Million [of that family],worked down Choppington High Pit,when I was a laddie,he was a nice natured fella,and his photo ,along with John Dawson's family,taken underground at the pit,stands at the entrance of Choppington woods,up Guide Post road,on the left side of the road. The lady who ran the shop,and whose husband had the sawmill down sheepwash bank,[a lot of years ago!!],is a very good friend of my Wife and myself. She is now 84 years old,and quick as a button,very sprightly,and dedicates her life to helping those in need,such as the shoebox appeal,and loads of other christian work. If I can think on,I will ask her about the place,who lived where etc.....mind,she canna mind of my Mother living at the top of the bank,where the Seahorse is. I was born there,but moved to Willow Bridge,Storey's Buildings,by the time I was about a year old. Fascinating reading you guys,about the history and origins of our land here,ye got me lost off in places......!!

Jack Tait was a real aad-fashioned gentleman...wi his dicky-bow tie,he was smart as a carrot always! When me Wife and me were courting in the years 1962-7,[got married in '67],we would be in the back seats,on a Friday,or Saturday neets....as ye did,in them days! Soon as ye start ti hae a innocent bit snog..[cuddlin' and a kissin' !],Jack wud tap us on the top o' wor heeds,very gently-like,and stand there, smiling at us!! We got ti knaa him real well,and he wudn't let ye waak past him in the street,if yi didn't see him!! Tab-smoke rolling around the upper decks,lit up in thi flickering projector beams.....was sickening ti folk like me who nivvor smoked! ...."a quarta o' Merry-Maids,please,and a box o' Terry's burnt almonds.. " [if a had a weekend shift in,cos them bugga's cost a full shift's pay.....!!] "Dracula...Prince of Darkness..." ....starring Christopher Lee....my Favourite type of films,oh,and H.G.WELLS'S movies also......nowt stupid like they are noo wi aal these idiotic computer graphics!!...gie me black and white Ealing,or Pinewood Studios,any day.....complete wi Pearl and Dean.....and "oowwlld King Coouwll was a merry ooulld soull....."...wi a little cube of coal wi a croon on he's heed,waaking alang..prood as a peacock.....!! But a canna mind hoo the coalman was,who had that advert on. Can anybody else mind o' it? Life was really simple and quiet and peaceful in them days....unless me specs are aal red.......!

My older Brother's Wife,was born at Netherton colliery village...and her Granda was in the Home guard,as was her Father. One day,in the early 1960's,when the couple were still courting,My Brother took me up to Netherton,to meet her Granda,as he was Bandleader of the Netherton Colliery Brass Band,and I was learning the guitar,[self-teaching],with a view to getting some tips on music. While we were there,my Brother asked Granda if he would show me something he had upstairs. Granda said "Take him up and show him....". So my Brother took me to Granda's bedroom,and, leaning down to the floor,pulled out from under the bed....................THREE big wooden ammunition boxes,in army green livery. One was full to the brim with clips of .303 cartridges,and machine gun belts full of cartridges. The other two were full of small cardboard boxes of .38 and ..45 [snub-nosed] cartridges....hundreds of them!! Enough to blow Netherton village up! I was about 15 years old,and started shaking with fear,at the sight of them,and just wanted to get out of the house! They were "left-overs" from the war,ammunition which was supplied,and never had the opportunity of being used. They were later handed in during amnesty,but I bet it raised a few eyebrows at the police station,who were probably used to getting the odd .410 or Army service revolvers,or small-time weapons,being handed in! There must have been thousands of bullets in these boxes,and to me,the most fearsome looking of all them were the .45's . Granda had been a weapons instructor in the Home Guard,and authorised to hold the ammunition. It was the same when they pulled the old houses down ,in Bell's Place,to build the rest of Hollymount Square,in the very early 1950's/late 1940's I lived in the first half of the square,when they were built after the war,around 1947-ish. We played in the deserted old terrace,which was being pulled down,and one of my older friends,found some shotfiring black powder fuse. I think I related the long story elsewhere in the forums,but the point is, the elder generation seemed to hoard stuff like that,then die! Mind,in those days,the old miners had to buy all their own pit gear,and explosives,and they used to keep the powder and fuse "wire",in the coal oven heater cupboard,near the mantelshelf,to keep it dry!

In the mid-1960's,my mate's Brother,Bob[?] Walker ran the pub on the right side of the picture...was it the Traveller's Rest or the Railway Tavern?

This is the posh end of Westlea,opposite the Cussins estate turn -in to the right..Threegee. Top of the picture is opposite Red House Farm estate,you can see the wide path running at an angle to the road.The old bungalows are to the right,out of sight. Foxy's pic is further south-easterly,t'other side of Red House Farm estate.......no?[at least over in that direction...sort of....!]

By the way,HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR MEMBERS!!

It's opposite where my Brother and Sister -in-law live,Westlea.

Nobody notice the obvious? Ewart Hill old opencast site in the background!,....it's not a pit heap or natural landscape.......in a part of Bedlington where all the land slopes away down the hill......this one is quite high!

Maggie,spot-on,and in full sympathy with my view of how it was, and how it is now! Nobody even seems to want eye-contact nowadays,I speak to anybody that passes me,whether they have a dog,[which I usually have],or even just standing at a bus stop!....sometimes I get a queer look....as if I was about to attack them or summik.......[at 70 years old!!!] I think one dog-owner was right in his views about evolution.....thoosands of years time,people will be born with only two thumbs...and no fingers!

Correct Tony! Shaft-drive,and water-cooled engine,no cooling fins like air-cooled motors have,just a solid-looking lump of metal,long-stroke-high torque,but purred along like a sewing machine!

.......Mrs White,had a fright,in the middle of the night........ ........She saw a ghost,eating toast,halfway up a lamp-post.....![sang to the twirl of the skippy ropes!] ........Carling,Palm,....Paste-egg day........[??????????????]...please finish it someone!![memory-block on this one!] Courtesy of my Wife,who was adept at all these activities as a lassie!

Would be a helluva co-incidence to have two Jimmy Kidds living in the same place at thi syem time dae yi not think.? Aa wud luv ti hae met him in later life ti gaan back ti thi aad days!!,find oot mair aboot thi folks who lived there when a was young!

Maggie,dae yi not think that sumbody in high places have created this culture where they've poisoned thi ordinary affectionate folks like us.... ....child issues...! ...one time yi cud stop and coo ti a bonny babby in a pram,even used ti put a peice of silver in it's little hand.....noo yi daren't even think of it or yi might be regarded as a .............. Aam pleased we lived and played,and grew up in the times when we did.....hard up,but sociable and friendly,and affectionate with one another.... .....mainly cos everywhere was mining communities with a close bond.[ a knaa not ivry body was,a said mainly...which was aboot reet...!]

Heh heh!! "Reserved for headmaster" bay! When aa started.....IN 1956...[!], tha was nae car parking,cos nae bugga had cars!..[or,if they DID,they were left at yem!!] Aal thi teachers waaked up thi road ti school,syem as us! Mr Cook..[?],who was the woodwork teacher,came inti thi yard on he's aad green "Sunbeam" in-line twin motorbike and sidecar combination. It was a gud aad workhorse,but cars?....definately not! A used ti speak ti Mr Freeman,our maths teacher,on he's way doon past thi Market Place,gaan doon Vulcan Place,after school hours,carrying he's briefcase,lang after aa left school,and was working doon Choppington High Pit by then! Everything was absoloutely pristine in the school grounds,in them days,having been newly built and landscaped,worthy of being photographed! It's sad ti see it noo,lukking dilapidated! The two class pics musta been aboot 1960-ish,cos a recognise a few faces among the lasses,who were in my class,in 1959,when aa left school. Aa was in the Upper Remove when a left...[the G.C.E. stream.].....stupid name for a class aa thowt,.....it suggests yi were removed from class for being a baddie....methinks!

Hey man,hope you had a great day/night,and many mair ti come..! Belated birthday wishes from HPW,Keef!

Teeny,a lived at Storey's Buildings,Choppington Station,on the bank,near ti the Willow Bridge,from aboot a year aad,till a was aboot three-and-a - half years aad,that was in 1947-8-ish. One of me Mutha's neighbour's was living next door,and the Man of thi hoose was in the Paratroops during thi War..[WW2] His name was Jimmy Kidd..[not sure aboot the spelling of his surname...] Any relation ti ye,dae yi knaa?

Heh heh Ovalteeny! A lot of lads went ti Nottingham and DerbyShire in the sixties...[Mind,a canny few came back an aal!] Jacky Broon was an electrician at Choppington High Pit,His younger Brother Billy was one of my playmates,and yes,they lived aroond thi corner from me, sort of on the corner of the square,next ti thi cut,which led past Hollymoont Hall,and doon ti Cornwall Crescent-Haigh-and Beattie Roads. There was a comedy character on thi telly in the 60's,called "Whacky-Jacky",and inevitebly,Jacky got that nickname tagged onto him,in the same way that aa got "Wilma" tagged ti me cos aa had lang hair which turned straggly with being soaked from the roof water underground.[witty lot,were some of the lads!!] [mind, a was just a young kid from me skyuul desk,stryght doon thi tetty hole,when aa was christened!] Jacky wud hev escaped that tag,by gaan doon sooth,but Wilma followed me ti every pit aa went ti,as one pit closed after another! It's a smaal world isn't it?[ye bumping inti him! ] Naa,a divvent hae any trouble getting ti sleep,Teeny,aam asleep afore me heed hits thi pillow,cos aam on thi go from mornin' till neet,lukking after me disabled Wife ,me little Lab-cross Jess has ti be waaked three times a day ,sumtimes,usually twice,and the last waak is sumtimes anywhere from midneet ti 3-0 am,as it was a few neets ago,when it was bitter caad and white wi frost ,wi a full moon,like dayleet!! Oh,then Percy has ti be fed,his bath water changed,his cage cleaned,caged up at neet,and let oot in the morning,so Mr Fox doesn't have an early Xmas dinner.......Percy is my Tame disabled [permanently],Herring Gull...!! One wing is at right angles when spread,the elbow joint being fused at birth,so he is grounded for life,only being able to teeter a couple of feet from thi ground as he races across the garden ti chase Mr Cat,Mr Sparrowhawk,and any other gulls,crows,or large birds,that dare to try and penetrate his territory..!! He leaves the small birds alone to feed,and walks around chasing after little black Jess's tail...!!! [my Labrador cross bitch] Watching these two in the garden is better than Coronation Street!...Jess walks around sniffing,as dogs dae,and Percy waaks aroond,either close behind,or in front,ti see if there is any food on thi go,ti beat Jess ti it!!!...nae kid!....he has been with us since birth,almost,from 2 years ago,and has just gone through his second-year's moult,lukking a smart young kid,so we must be lukking after him well.......whey,he gets better lukked after,and taaked ti,than sum bairns dae...!!! Constantly buying cheap cans of dog food,tins of sardines occasionally,and fish scraps from a local fishmonger,for which we remain very indebted,for thier kindness!! A tame gull is totally different to the flocks at the harbour's or the waste tips. Percy won't get into his bath,unless it is freshly filled with clean water,then he jumps in before you get the hosepipe out!!..[preens himself for hours on end,after bathing..] He also won't eat bread on it's own,unless there is a filling,or even just margarine on it,nae kid!!...this is the best fed bird in the land!! ..........but an aad pitman like me wud say he's ..."Paaky"..! ....Er....aav just lukked back ti check me spelling..........it luks like a strayed a little bit off thi rails....! Wheor waas aa......?..!!

Thanks for your kind comments Ovalteenie! I've been writing a bit of my life story on and off for aboot four years or more,I finished "Book One",which charts my life from aboot aged two-and-a-half years,[being dragged back on my little feet by my Mother,in my leather reins with the metal studs in for decoration!] I am now on Book Two,which takes my life from my first day doon Choppington High Pit,and will,if I live long enough to finish it,cover all the pits that I worked at over nearly thirty years,and then jobs as a re-trained Cabinet-Maker etc,that I did in the following years ,until I retired due to ill-health. My memory is vivid,and I don't sit thinking what to write,the words just flow from my pen,only very slowly,because of disabilities to my writing hand,due to having severed tendons and dislocated and broken fingers after an accident in 1996. So I write a few pages,then it lies for a week or two...or sometimes a month or two! But hopefully I will get there,but there is only one problem.! I don't think a publisher would publish it,unless I seriously edited it,which I would have nothing to do with,it stays as it is ,or not at all....too many high-up chiefs in high up places in the National Coal Board, AND the Government named for risking the miner's lives by sending inferior equipment and roof supports down the mines,for cheapness,and also for suspected "gifts for contracts".....!! Methinks it wouldn't pass! Pity,cos I sometimes re-read bits that I wrote about 3 years ago,just to re-cap,and I get really into it,as if it was written by someone else....crazy or what?!

History books are like the Bible,and the Durham Mining Museum....!! Very misinformed,distorted in places with the wrong facts,and very contradiictory....you take things with a pinch of salt,and don't get excited cos one book says different to another....or one History Teacher tells you how it was...! Do you,for example,really believe that the angels were blokes with feathery wings....and lovely satiny skirts,or dresses....whichever way you want to view them?[and if they were,was there a factory unit set up to make them for the angels....and were the Angels all white in a black,or brown race of people...no obese ones...all slender built.....?...!!!]I am a believer!....with a different perspective of the whole scenario!! The Durham Mining Museum,has loads of false information in,where people who refer to it to get "the facts and figures" actually know nothing about the mining history,or they wouldn't need to refer to it!! There are dates of fatalities for instance,at Choppington B Pit,which,to have been true,would have meant that I started the pit when I was 13 or 14 years old![people I worked with who were killed in the pit 10 minutes after I last spoke to them.....just to give a really sad example of how history is written and then "misconstrued"....is that the right word?] Sorry it I went off a bit,but just trying to press a point that Maggie has also made! Now let's all have a singsong for christmas eh?!!

Never watched the movies or telly for the last 30-odd years...would rather spend that sort of time playing guitar or biking or out walking!! Last Robin Hood I watched was the series when it first started in around 1958-ish......or whenever Tyne Tees TV was inaugerated,and we were inundated with American and British productions of all sorts of things....westerns,drama's..cartoons etc![and I was a very young laddie!!] I tell a lie!!...it just came to me!!....the last Robin Hood I watched,was at the Plessey Seam loader-end,where the loader lad was called EXACTLY that!! [doon Bates pit!...in aroond 1971-ish...!]...and he wasn't firing arrows....he was loading 3-ton mine cars from a conveyor belt with coal! One day the conveyor belts all stood for aboot half an hour...[a lot of coal production lost..]..and the Manager rang him to ask what was going on..... .....the Manager asked who was speaking,and the poor lad had to reply........."Robin Hood".....!! "come to my office tonight "...."but......but......."........"Office I said....."......"Aareet Mr ........" When the Manager checked with the Pay Clerks,HE had to apologise to poor Robin!!...[his Mother and Father must have loved Richard Green..the Original Robin Hood..!!] Who is this Kotsner bloke you are talking about?.....you must watch a lot of movies then?...to know about such unheard of people!!........[deliberate mis-spelling for dramatic effect...artistic licence!] Great to have a nice debate Tony!!