Coal: heart and soul
10:35am Monday 12th May 2008
What dangers did miners face? What was the bond system?
And what do mines have to do with pigeon racing? Owen Amos talks to the author of a new book on Northern mines
A BOY emerges from the deep, dark underground. He clings to the chain that carries him up the shaft, into light, into air, and away from the dank Tyneside pit. But the chain slips through his hands. He slides down the chain, back to black. His brother, luckily, clings to the same chain, further down. "I'm gannen to fall," the younger brother says. "Slide down to me," the older brother replies, reassuringly.
But the older brother isn't strong enough to hold him. They struggle, slip, and plummet to their deaths.
The tragedy, witnessed by Joseph "Pitman Poet" Skipsey, born in 1832, was first recorded in 1923's A History of the Parish of Wallsend. The story is reproduced - along with hundreds of others, happy and sad - in The Great Northern Miners, a new history of North-East mining by Ken and Jean Smith. Sadly, tragedies abound.
There's September 28, 1844, when 95 men and boys died in an explosion at Haswell Colliery, near Easington. One man, attempting to save himself from foul air, was found with his cap wedged in his mouth, dead.
There's September 8, 1880, when 164 men and boys died in an explosion at Seaham Colliery. One man, trapped, scratched a message on a container before he died.
"Dear wife, farewell," he wrote.
"My lasts thoughts are about you and the children. Oh what an awful position to be in."
And there's May 29, 1951, when 81 men plus two rescuers died in an explosion at Easington Colliery. One miner, George Williams, 19, attempted to find his twin, who was working elsewhere in the pit. He was ordered not to.
His twin, Matthew, emerged alive, but died soon afterwards.
The North-East's mining heritage brings a vast death toll. The book talks of "winning" the coal, as if mining was a battle. As the stories prove, it was a battle that was lost, as well as won.
But not every tragedy meant death.
There was, for example, the tragedy of boys under ten working in mines until 1842. One poster, reproduced in the book, lists the 91 dead after the 1812 Felling disaster. Greg Galley, aged 10. Will Gardiner, 10. Joseph Gordon, 10. Thomas Gordon, 8.
And there was the tragedy of the bond system, which, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, forced miners to work for one pit for a year - but didn't oblige pit owners to give them work. If miners absconded, they faced one to three months' imprisonment. The Bishop of Durham even offered his stables as temporary cells.
In June 1832, magistrate Nicholas Fairless, of South Shields, was pulled off his horse on the outskirts of town. He was attacked and killed. Miner William Jobling was found guilty and hanged at Durham. His body was hung in an iron frame from a gibbet.
But, despite its sometimes tragic past, co-author Ken Smith says mines were crucial in shaping today's North-East. "I think we can say the mines made the North-East," he says. "Economically, they were fundamental. The basis of our early heavy industry was coal. Also, it shaped the social and cultural life. One of the big things in pit communities was the spirit and togetherness - which comes out, for example, at Durham Gala.
There was a brotherhood of the mines."
The social life spawned by mines was - and still is - evident. The book, for example, has a picture of Spen Black and White football team from 1900. The players sit proudly in socks, shorts, and stripes, like 21st Century pub teams across the region.
Other North-East traditions, aside from village football, were born in pit culture. "Prize leek growing and pigeon racing have their roots deep in mining culture," writes Tony Henderson in the book. "After long days spent working underground and the industrial grime of the colliery, mineworkers craved fresh air, contact with the natural world - and a creative way to spend leisure time which contrasted with the harsh realities of the pit."
The rise of trade unionism is charted, from the reintroduction of the bond in 1864, to the Great Lockout of 1926, and the Great Strike of 1984 - 85. "There was a general improvement in the standard of living, and that was down in no small measure to the trade unions," says Ken.
"They had to fight for a living wage, but also for better safety conditions. That was the big improvement, and that was down to the unions."
The book took two years - and it was a family affair. Ken's wife, Jean, researched and wrote the chapters on miners' wives a daughters - "They worked as hard as the miners," says Ken - and his son, Richard, took many of the photos.
"It's an important subject for the North-East, a vital subject," says Ken.
"I think it was time to look again at the miners, from the 1300s to the closure of the last pit, Ellington, in 2005. I found the subject fascinating - the book is about the people and their history, rather than a dry history of mining. Wherever we went, people were generous in contributing their memories, and we are grateful."
It's more than 150 years since those two brothers slipped to death in Wallsend's long, dark shaft. To today's young "the pits" are an adjective, not a workplace, and coal is Chelsea's leftback.
Ken hopes his book can be used in schools, to remind the North-East of its heritage.
"In many ways it is a sad history, but people had great spirit - great cheerfulness,"
he says. "Some parts were harrowing, absolutely harrowing, but I felt a duty to catalogue all of them - it's a way of paying tribute to those men and boys. Hopefully, it will give the younger generation some idea of their mining heritage - and some idea of the ordeal their ancestors faced."
■ The Great Northern Miners, £12.95, is printed in full colour with hundreds of photos and is on sale at Newcastle Libraries, bookshops, and direct from Tyne Bridge Publishing, Newcastle Libraries, PO Box 88, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE99 1DX - add £1 postage. For more information, visit www.tynebridgepublishing.co.uk.