Heart of the union

9:55am Thursday 3rd July 2008

A first-time author at 76, veteran socialist Dave Ayre enjoys life on the edge - and that's just Windy Ridge

THOUGH it's the finest day of a fitful summer, the coal fire's still in - that is to say, not going out - in Dave and Doris Ayre's crowded little front room on the very brink of Windy Ridge. You can never be too careful on Stanley Hill Top.

Dave's been in the village above Crook for all but one of his 76 years, loves the place, knows its fearful reputation.

"It can get bitter, bitter cold and the gales can still be frightening, but on a day like today there's no better place in the world.

"You can see Yorkshire from the front window."

They're lovely, caring people, pillars of the village church. He still calls her Pet, still rides 10,000 miles a year on his bike, still raises thousands of pounds for charity.

Yet Dave is also an old-school socialist, a passionate trades unionist - part of the union certainly but the beating heart of the union, too.

"I think being a trade unionist is about having an affinity with people, maybe about loving them," he says. "I think I probably do."

He is also co-author of a new book called The Flying Pickets, about the 1972 building workers' strike, the use of "lump" labour and the fate of the so-called Shrewsbury 32.

One of them was Royle Family actor Ricky Tomlinson, then a building site man, jailed for two years for intimidation. Another was Des Warren, jailed for three years and suffering from Parkinson's disease on his release.

Proceeds from the book will go towards Warren's trust fund.

The undying aim is to gain a judicial review, a public inquiry, a pardon for the 32. The slogan is "No justice, no peace" and if that's almost a cliché, there's nothing stereotypical about Dave Ayre, a man prepared neither to like it nor to lump it.

"When he has something to say he usually thinks about it first," says Doris. "With a lot of people it's the same thing over and over. That's just rhetoric."

A month short of his 77th birthday, still secretary of the Crook branch of UCATT, he fights not for gain, nor militancy nor martyrdom, but for justice.

While he was still a baby, his parents moved to Wooley Terrace - locals rhyme it with "coolie" - a colliery terrace row of 102 back-to-back houses with a single cold tap each and a shared netty across the street. The views were good, though.

"I think even then we knew it was hardship," he says. "It opened my eyes but I never regretted it. I was probably an instinctive socialist."

His brother Ken, a talented artist, was born soon afterwards. "He worked for the NCB as a statistician, so he saw how they massaged figures to help shut pits," says Dave.

He hated school, damn-near chained himself to the railings on only the second day, failed the 11+, left days before his 14th birthday and started on the building sites.

Almost everyone else went down the pit, as if it were their accident- of-birthright.

Dave only went once, a Friday evening. "I was frightened to death," he recalls.

"The machinery was winding down and you could hear the pit props creaking. I realised they were all that stood between men and their lives."

His father died at 62. "They did an autopsy and showed me part of his lungs. It was just like a lump of coal."

He'd joined the union in 1948, having first passed the selection panel, urged by his father always to pay his union money and his rent money, in that order. "If I didn't pay my union money," he said, "I'd never be able to pay my rent."

After national service with the DLI he returned to the building industry, frequently sacked, and learned the perils of the trade. "As a branch secretary, 99 per cent of your work concerned accidents, but I was a social worker, too.

"There'd be huge men on building sites who you'd have thought were frightened of nothing, but who were terrified of taking a case to court, or even talking to a solicitor."

He also joined the Labour party, belonged subsequently to two or three more left-wing socialist groups, now has no party allegiance at all.

"I'm bitterly, bitterly disappointed at New Labour. I knew instinctively that Tony Blair wasn't a socialist, he struggles when meeting working people.

"I thought with Gordon Brown there might be a sea change, but there hasn't been. They are divorced from the sort of people who are rank-andfile trade unionists. They don't meet them face to face, there is no conception at all."

We'd last been face to face with Dave in 2005, a service for Workers' Memorial Day at St Thomas's church, just along the road, led by Dr David Jenkins the former Bishop of Durham.

"The most obvious and chief reason for not believing in God," said Dr Jenkins, "is the words and actions of those who say they do."

The church also has a stained glass window, "in loving memory of workers throughout the world who have died through accident, injury or disease in the course of their work". It's replicated in the Ayres' front room.

Dave supposes himself to be not much of a Christian, insists that most people still want the church to be there - even if they don't attend.

"It's like a union branch. If there's only one person in trouble who comes along to the meeting, then it's been worthwhile.

"If there's only one person who comes to the church, even if it's just to sit in the quiet and listen to the birds, then it's crucial that it's there.

"I can't say that I've ever thought of bosses as the enemy. They're just doing a job of work, the only problem is that it sometimes isn't in the workers' favour."

Alphabetical, egalitarian, the 380- page book's authors are listed as Dave Ayre, Reuben Barker, Jim French, Jim Graham and Dave Harker. Jimmy French is a former full-time UCATT official from Darlington and Dave's cycling partner; Dave Harker's an academic, the others union officials in Crook.

Back on Windy Ridge, Dave Ayre's contemplating a couple of hours on the bike - "It unwinds me" - maybe a ten-mile time trial through Hamsterley Forest that evening. Now and again, he says, he even wins something.

So what chance for the Shrewsbury 32? "I'm quite sure that with the present Government and the one that's likely to follow it's going to be a hard fight. I'm not sure that our union and the TUC are going in the right direction, either, but there's one thing I do know. The struggle goes on."

A first-time author at 76, veteran socialist Dave Ayre enjoys life on the edge - and that's just Windy Ridge UNION STALWART: Dave Ayre at his home at Stanley Hill Top Picture: SARAH NICHOLSON By Mike Amos email: mike.amos@nne.co.uk 26 FEATURES The Northern Echo northernecho.co.uk THURSDAY, JULY 3, 2008 Heart of the union RICKY Tomlinson, with Des Warren sometimes known simply as the Shrewsbury Two, was for four years a member of the National Front - he blamed being "politically naïve and poorly educated" - before veering towards the opposite extreme. Now famous for roles in series like The Royle Family, Cracker and Nice Guy Eddie, he has remained an active campaigner for workers' rights.

He has also been a guest at pre-Durham Miners' Gala gatherings in Crook, organised by Dave Ayre - at one of which Tomlinson and Warren healed a long-standing rift.

"Ricky came in with a carrier bag full of bottles of beer, the only kind he'll drink," recalls Dave. "Even if he's at the Grosvenor Hotel, or the BAFTAs, he still brings his carrier bag of bottles."

Nine months ago, 69-year-old Tomlinson underwent a quadruple heart-bypass operation but is now back touring. In February 2007, he had attended a meeting to promote the Campaign for a New Workers Party. He even proposed a slogan - "New Labour My."

Readers may imagine the rest for themselves.

Back to school for Tin Tacks memories

ALREADY swotting up for its centenary, Timothy Hackworth school in Shildon - the column's dear old alma mater - has an open day today (1-7pm) at which all former pupils are invited to share their memories.

The school was officially opened on February 12, 1910 by Mr M Watson JP, who described it as "a magnificent pile of buildings". It was the 48th new school in County Durham in the previous six years, with 25 more under construction and 28 planned.

Though the following Monday's Echo gave the event due coverage, the paper could almost have been sub-titled "and Temperance Times", so great the volume of news from the region's abstainers.

The annual meeting of Durham County Rechabbites had attracted delegates from all 143 adult branches. The high-water mark, they heard - as Rechabbites might - had been in 1907.

Tin Tacks, as it became known to generations of mischievous bairns, could accommodate 360 boys, 360 girls and 380 infants. This afternoon they hope to attract anyone with mementoes, or just memories.

Christine Tillotson, one of the teachers planning the centenary celebration, is also trying to attract a big name to the event.

Early favourite is Dr Who star David Tennant, with Mike Amos a lightyears distant second. Faced with a choice between Dr Who and Who's He, Christine's diplomatic. "I think," she says, "that the children might relate more greatly to David Tennant."

STILL in Shildon, last week's note on the night that American singer Del Shannon was refused admission to his own show at the town's workmen's club struck a chord with Paul Beken in Newton Aycliffe. "My recollection is that he'd been billed as an Irish folk singer," he recalls.

"That he didn't have any club cards probably didn't help, either."

BOTH Jimmy Roberts and Albert Curle have written about Moir Lockhead, the West Cornforth lad - "just one of the lads", they agree - knighted in the Birthday Honours List.

Jimmy, now in Ferryhill Station, recalls West Cornforth schooldays, how young Lockhead kept pigeons out the back, how they'd play football and have adventures in Doggy woods.

"There was never any trouble," says Jimmy. "In those days you were afraid of your local policeman."

Albert recalls apprentice days at United Automobile Services in Darlington - he from Ferryhill and Moir from West Cornforth, two communities which shared a youthful hostility.

"I was cautious when I first met him because my mates and I would often go down to Doggy woods armed to the teeth with catapults and gats (slug guns), but we always kept a look-out for the Doggy militia, armed with BSA rifles. I was fleet of foot in those days."

United, they stood together.

"Moir was no fool but never conceited,"

says Albert and in honour of his old friend even essays a little poem: We all find our level in life, that is so Sir Moir, I'll show no remorse I'll follow your lead wheresoever you go And I'll clean up after your horse.

The knight is now chief executive of First Group, the Aberdeen-based transport conglomerate with vast interests either side of the Atlantic. Moir shortly.

NEVER one to miss the opportunity of a little gentle name-dropping, veteran Darlington councillor and estate agent Peter Freitag - 80-ish - uses being put through to the wrong extension to recall Cyd Charisse, the flirty dancer who died two weeks ago. "My father and I had lunch with her and her husband Tony Bennett," recalls Peter. "He was brilliant, she was boring. Her legs went on forever, unfortunately her brain didn't."

JACK Robinson's funeral passed as agreeably, almost as enjoyably, as these occasions now can. "A cracking funeral, real good atmosphere, absolutely spot on," says Billy Nettleton, landlord of the Blacksmiths Arms in Mickleton - Jack's adopted village in Teesdale.

Hannah Hauxwell, 82 in August and still in good fettle, was among the mourners and eager to share some memories.

Jack, 80-year-old retired landlord of the Rose and Crown in Mickleton, was best known for his charity work and for his insistence that the village be returned to Yorkshire, from which in 1974 it had arbitrarily been annexed.

To mark his Tykeit- or-leave-it intransigence, his mates from the Blackies all wore white roses. Billy Nettleton's from Durham City and swears there's no place like it in the world - "but for Jack, for one day at least, I'd almost be Yorkshire".

THE presentation to Willington library of a copy of Allan Newman's short biography of Captain George McKean VC MC MM - a local hero, if ever there was - will now take place next Tuesday at 11am with members of his family in attendance. Memory's pace gathers irresistibly, Gillian Pitcher from Etherley the latest family member to come forward. More of that next week.

INVITED to attend, we looked last Friday evening into the village fair at Cleasby, south of Darlington - a timeless panoply of shuggy boats and Scottish dancers, of vintage cars and a fairground organ. Inevitably, it played I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts; they all do.

The event was to boost the funds of Cleasby and Stapleton village hall, built as a Friends' School in 1848 by Thomas Benson Pease, the lord of the manor. The school closed in 1947.

The weather just about behaved, the folk were welcoming, the event raised a remarkable £1,460.

and finally, a couple of welcome plugs. Tomorrow night and Saturday night (7.30pm) at Willington Methodist church hall, the community group Natural High perform the Malcolm Sircom musical Gel.

Led among others by Alison Wigham, Laura Emerson and Cheryl Carson, the group offers young people the opportunity to sing, dance, learn stagecraft and perform. Tickets £4.

A little more mature, perhaps, Stockton Male Voice Choir helps mark its 60th anniversary with a musical evening at All Saints church, Hurworth, near Darlington on Saturday, July 12 (7.30pm). The Locomotion Boys choir will also perform. Tickets are £5, proceeds to the church tower restoration fund.

The choir has 37 singing members, welcomes more - Grays Road Institute, Mondays 7.30pm - has no requirement to read music and declines to audition.

"Our approach to learning is very light-hearted, often humorous," they say. There could be hope for Timothy Hackworth lads yet.

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