The extraordinary artistic camps for unemployed ironstone miners

IN April 1932, the effects of the Great Depression were being felt across Teesside as the shipbuilding industry ground to a halt. In turn, the east Cleveland ironstone mining villages of Boosbeck and Margrove Park were devastated by unemployment as the demand for iron ore, which fed the blast furnaces of Middlesbrough, collapsed.

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Unemployment hit 90 per cent and many residents were close to starvation.

In response, several prominent local figures came together to establish the East Cleveland Work Camps.

Major James Pennyman of Ormesby Hall in Middlesbrough procured a rough patch of moorland for the miners to grow crops and keep livestock. Student volunteers were recruited to help the locals with the back-breaking work of preparing the rough moorland for planting.

Ruth Pennyman, circa 1940. Ruth Pennyman was chairman of the local branch of the National Joint Committee for the Spanish Relief. She defied her husband to help refugees of the Spanish Civil War.

The major’s wife, Ruth Pennyman, was keen to ensure that the student volunteers were successfully integrated into this tough working-class community, and with the help of friend Rolf Gardiner, she organised evening events at which the local community would come together with the volunteers.

Gardiner had many connections in Europe having spent much of his youth living in Germany, and he brought with him to Boosbeck two German friends, the choral singing teacher Georg Gotsch and the renowned puppeteer Harro Siegal.

Harro Siegal’s puppet design for the First East Cleveland Work Camp. Image: Teesside Archives

At the first work camp, Gotsch brought the miners and volunteers together to sing Bach motets, Siegal performed his impressive puppet shows, and the miners danced their traditional sword dance.

One of the young volunteers was an idealistic young artist called Wilf Franks. He was a Londoner who had studied at the famous Bauhaus art school in Germany. At this first work camp, Franks worked with the miners on the land, participated in the evening events and got to know Tom Batterbee, a local miner who was known around the area for his beautiful singing voice.

The two men became friends, and Franks stayed with Batterbee and his family at their terraced house on Boosbeck High Street.

The first is Carney street, where Tippett and Wilf stayed, in Boosbeck

Franks remembered that Batterbee had the most beautiful tenor voice. He said: “When we used to come into the pub at night, especially on Saturdays, he used to sing. He had an absolutely lovely voice, one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard. Several of his little boys used to sing too.”

The first work camp in April was judged to have been a great success, and a second was planned for August of that year. Rolf Gardiner and his German friends were unavailable, but Ruth Pennyman was adamant that the communal evening events should continue.

One volunteer was David Ayerst, a journalist at the Manchester Guardian. Ayerst suggested his friend, an aspiring young composer called Michael Tippett, take over the role of musical director at the camp, and a meeting was hastily arranged. Ayerst and Franks went to meet Michael Tippett at Manchester railway station.

Michael Tippett and Wilf Franks in Spain, 1933. Image Caroline Ayerst.

For the young composer it was a love at first sight moment. Ayerst remembered: “What was immediately obvious that April evening was that something totally unexpected by Michael had happened. He was stirred and disturbed. Without saying a word Wilf had moved to the vacant centre of Michael’s life and filled it… Alchemy was at work.”

Needless to say, Michael Tippett took up the role of musical director at the next work camp, and in September 1932, he produced a version of The Beggar's Opera in Boosbeck Village Hall.

Michael Tippett

Tom Batterbee sang in the choir, Tippett conducted a small orchestra made up of Ruth Pennyman’s friends, and Wilf Franks acted the part of Filch. The production was hugely popular and fights broke out as locals tried to access the sold-out performance.

Tippett remembered one local woman waving her umbrella and shouting at a policeman who had turned her away: “I’ll beat your bloody brains in, yer buggers, if you don’t let me in!”

The land in Boosbeck where miners grew crops during the scheme

Tippett and Wilf Franks returned to London and commenced a passionate and volatile love affair. Franks split his time between London and Boosbeck where he started a furniture making scheme with a group of young unemployed miners, a scheme that eventually developed into Boosbeck Industries, a furniture manufacturing business.

In 1934, Tippett’s first operatic production was composed for the miners of East Cleveland. It was a socialist interpretation of the Robin Hood story. The Robin Hood folk opera was also performed in the village hall, with Tom Batterbee singing in the choir and Wilf Franks acting the part of Friar Tuck. The socialist views of the participants were evidenced in the words which were written by Ruth Pennyman and David Ayerst.

So God he made us outlaws

To beat the devil's man;

To rob the rich, to feed the poor

By Robin's ten-year plan.

Immediately after the 1934 work camp, Tippett composed his String Quartet no1. It was dedicated to Wilf Franks. The composer wrote about the piece: “Meeting with Wilf was the deepest, most shattering experience of falling in love: and I am quite certain it was a major factor underlying the discovery of my own individual musical voice… all that love flowed out in the slow movement of my first string quartet, an unbroken span of lyrical music in which all four instruments sing ardently from start to finish.

Michael Tippett went on to become one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century, and his compositions are still performed around the world to this day.

He was deeply moved by his experience of living amongst the miners of Boosbeck. The poverty he experienced during his time in the North-East stayed with him and greatly influenced his compassionate feelings towards outcast people of the world.

In his 1991 autobiography, he wrote: “Sitting on the kerbside, we lunched on bread, cheese and apples. The apple cores we threw away were immediately seized by some small children nearby: these poor mites had sores on their faces and were obviously half-starved; coming from the well-fed South, I found it mortifying. The sight of these underprivileged, malnourished northern children haunted me for years afterwards.

Woodcarving by Wilfred Franks, 1932. Probably made in the workshop at Boosbeck.

Danyel Gilgan has written a book about the life of his late grandfather, the artist Wilfred Franks (1908-2003). He explains how the story of his grandfather is connected to the great composer Sir Michael Tippett and how part of the story played out in the north-eastern mining village of Boosbeck in East Cleveland. The book, The Life Before: My Grandfather’s Life Uncovered, is available now on Amazon.