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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

PIT MUCK A Collection of Poetry and Prose by Hemsworth Writers

Cover photographs courtesy of John Fleming.

Design by Liz McPherson.

Printed by The Education Department of the National Coal Mining Museum for England. 2013.

© Copyright of each piece remains with each author.

The information and opinions expressed within each piece are entirely the responsibility of the individual writer and no responsibility is taken for the accuracy or otherwise of any facts.

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

Foreword The Hemsworth WEA Creative Writing Class has been running for a number of years, although membership has varied during that time and they have worked with a range of different tutors.

At the moment there are 16 students attending the course at the Springs Life Resource Centre, Southmoor Road, Hemsworth. The class was lucky enough to be awarded funding from the WEA Out of the Box Project and were able to visit the National Coal Mining Museum in March 2013.

Much of the creative work was inspired by the visit and the underground tour but many of the writers also have connections to mining and have written on the topic in the past. Some of those earlier works are included.

Thanks are due to the Education Department of the Mining Museum for making a room available and for the initial printing of copies of this booklet.

We hope readers will enjoy this diverse collection of material which includes poetry, prose and reminiscence.

Liz McPherson Tutor -­‐ Hemsworth Creative Writing Class May 2013

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

Founded in 1903, the WEA (Workers' Educational Association) is a charity and the UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education, delivering 9,500 part-­‐time courses for over 74,000 people each year in England and Scotland.

With the active support of over 400 local branches, 3,000 volunteers, 2,000 part-­‐time tutors and 60,000 members the WEA provides high quality, student-­‐centred and tutor-­‐led education for adults from all walks of life. They also maintain our special mission to provide educational opportunities to adults facing social and economic disadvantage.

Through curriculum themes of employability, health & wellbeing, community engagement and culture, the WEA gives students the confidence to learn new skills, live healthier lives, engage in society and broaden their horizons. Courses are created and provided through regional offices and volunteer-­‐led branches, often in partnership with local community groups and organisations.

You do not need any previous knowledge or qualifications to join most of the courses, only a willingness to share with others your curiosity, ideas and experience.

Workers’ Educational Association Yorkshire & Humber Region Suite 10B, Joseph’s Well, Hanover Walk, Leeds LS3 1AB Tel: 0113 245 3304 Fax: 0113 245 0883 Email: yorkshumber@wea.org.uk

Website: www.wea.org.uk/yh

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

PIT MUCK

By Jan Holliday The opportunity to visit the National Coal Mining museum brought back memories I thought were gone for ever.

In 1966 I was a very naïve orthopaedic student nurse at Pinderfields when I first came into contact with MINERS, a breed of men I had not encountered before.

I was on E ward at the top of ‘The Huts’ which were pre-­‐fab wards, originally constructed to house WWII casualties. These should have been demolished years before but were still in use in the mid-­‐sixties.

The ward sister had been notified that a miner had been taken directly to casualty from the pit.

He had a fractured femur and would be admitted onto our ward prior to surgery. He was the first of many miners I was to nurse.

We had to put the “blue bed pack” on the bed ready to admit him; these were thick blue sheets and pillow cases because white ones would never have been white again if they were soiled with pit muck.

The guy came onto the ward after being checked in Casualty and was stable. The fracture was still in the splint supplied by the pit’s first aid team but he needed to be cleaned up and put into a theatre gown before the fracture could be pinned and plated.

We-­‐ that is myself and a senior 3rd year student washed him over and over until he was nearly clean of all the surface gunge but we didn’t manage to get rid of the black coal dust rim from around his eyes. The poor chap must have been in agony despite being half conscious with shock and the morphia shots the pit rescue team had given him.

I felt a flutter of panic when he vomited a yellow slime speckled with black bits; my first thought was “coffee grounds”, a sign of bleeding into the stomach and serious internal injury. Sister was called and we three all peered into the kidney bowl as she swilled the contents around.

In an almost triumphant voice she said, “It’s coal dust!” She went on to explain that miners ingest it as they lick their lips at work and finer particles – as fine as dust motes you can see in sunshine – get inhaled, causing all manner of lung conditions. “Look in your text book and Nurses’ Dictionary for chronic bronchitis and chronic cardiac failure,” she finished.

I did. It left me wondering how men could work in conditions that were potentially fatal.

April 2013

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

TO DAD (after visiting Caphouse Colliery, 20/3/2013) Today, Dad, I’ve trod where you once trod, And my mother’s grandfather before you.

I saw how you both made your daily bread, And how coal can be both vice and virtue.

I remembered your photo in our “Squirrel” tin, Six suited surveyors, ‘gainst the offices, leant.

And I saw the same six, lamped ‘n belted again, Begrimed and booted, after an underground stint.

In the Lamp-­‐room, you checked my lamp was alight.

We looked down the vent, into all of that dark.

On ent’ring the cage, I heard your loping gait, And knew this dust and dirt were all your day’s work.

When I learned miners’ boots were flooded with sweat, I saw your foot powder, on our bathroom sill, And remembered the way you’d tended your feet, And the discarded socks, all crusty and stale.

At noon, as I stood in the freezing cold rain, And watched the one pony nibbling its grass, I walked by your side, to “A” Winning Mine, Through snow tunnels piled right up to my face.

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

TO DAD cntd.

At last, in the bus, as we all journeyed back, I felt hungry and cold and really quite ill, Till I found, in my coat, the little brass check, And the flat, squarish piece of souvenir coal.

Tonight, while soaking myself in the bath, Ridding my skin of the long day’s black grime, I thought of you in the pithead baths booth, Coal Tar in your eyes, Brylcreem in your comb.

I look at the photo of you, at twenty: “Survey Camp, Llandudno, prior to leaving,” And although, since then, there’s been hurt aplenty, This visit, Dad, has eased some of that grieving.

Lynda McCraight April 2013

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

LYNDA’S DAD IS THE MAN ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE PHOTOS

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

THE ‘PRINCE’ On the park side of town, near the old racecourse track Stands our closed-­‐down-­‐ pit and it’s never coming back.

Employing one thousand men at the height of its fame Just the slag heaps remain, darkly echoing its name.

T’was the only one we had sitting right on the door Of our historic town, sadly now it is no more.

Prince of Wales it was called but for us it was the King With its megawatt winder and million steel rings.

And while the townsfolk slept, all the rippers plied their trade, Carving roadway tunnels to keep up with progress made By the miners ploughing on, taking strip after strip Of the precious black stuff for its one and only trip.

But it broke as many hearts as reputations that it made For some who were courageous when they should have been afraid.

Afraid of the dark and the danger lurking there Against a thousand tons of rock, they didn’t have a prayer.

But now it has all gone the memories are fond when Recalled through the mist, like the blonde you once kissed And so it should remain, never sullied by the truth Of the dangers in the dark and the courage of our youth.

Seamus Healy

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

THE THREE ABSENTEES

by Jan Holliday It was during my third year in training to become a nurse that I did another three months on E Ward at Pinderfields.

I loved those guys and I admired them for the hard toil they did underground, toil that I could only imagine. I enjoyed their sense of the ridiculous and their zany, often black humour but sometimes they put me in fear for my job because there was no way I could impose the rules of the hospital on them.

They were fit fellows with appetites beyond hospital food and sometimes I would boil duck eggs for them at midnight with slices of toast. When all except the dim safety lights in the ward had to be out, I’d let them read with a cloth draped around their bed lights. I’d sit and listen when they needed an ear but I never dreamt I’d become an unwilling accomplice to three who went AWOL. It was a Saturday night. It had been a nice day; I’d been told when I took over from the Charge Hand (the male equivalent to a Ward Sister). All was quiet on the ward, no serious cases, and just 3 patients needing 4 hourly observations – temperature, pulse and breathing. But, three other guys hadn’t come back yet from their walk around the gardens – which they had permission for. I was told not to worry-­‐ their condition was stable, they’d be ok and would be back in time for lights out at 9 p.m. It just seemed amusing at first-­‐ three lads out, probably enjoying the evening air, maybe larking about even though one was in a wheelchair with his leg in plaster cast from groin to little toe, another (the joker) with his arm and shoulder immobilised in a pot and an iron bar brace. The third had his lower leg and foot potted and was using an underarm crutch.

When it got to 8.15 pm I was worried. It was almost dark – should I report the absentees to Matron’s Office? At 8.30 I started to panic – should I ring the Gate Office (security) to find out if they had been seen in the grounds? Then 9 pm came and I had to put the big lights out on the ward. Where on earth were my patients?

Suddenly there was a noise out on the long sloping corridor that ran from top to bottom in the huts. Before I had time to get the ward doors open the guys arrived, slamming the doors open and snapping the lights on. They were ‘tight’ but safe and with plaster casts intact, thank goodness.

“Bed” I hissed. “Now. It’s time for the night sister’s rounds!”

The joker, arm and shoulder potted at an unusual angle, poddled into the ward rattling the metal basket full of glass bed bottles which were used for the men to empty their bladders into.

The whole ward was in uproar. I was nearly in tears. And I was sure that if the night sister had walked in at that moment my career in nursing would be over before I’d taken the exam.

An older man shouted down the ward, “Get to bed now or you’ll get her the sack!”

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

To my relief, to bed they went, not all correctly dressed in pjs, but at least they were in bed and the lights were out.

Sister was not late that night and she did a very quick round. The patients seemed to be comatose and so deep in sleep that they all snored very heavily.

As I escorted Sister to the door she asked me a question which made my heart beat faster. “Has everything been alright on the war this evening? Only, Security said the main lights came back on for a while.”

“Yes, Sister,” I replied. “I er, fumbled the lights somehow.”

I was sure that I heard the echo of a giggle as she walked down the corridor and thinking back now, I’m sure that I did. After all, she had done some of her training on E Ward so she must have had a good idea what had gone on that evening with my three absentees.

April 2013

Medically, many miners suffer from silicosis, caused by working in the fine dust, which leads to wasting of

the tissues. In the old days, working by candle light in a small confined space, with the candle either in their cap, or in a lump of clay stuck to the wall, many men ended up with nystagmus, caused by the flickering of the flame at the periphery of their vision and prolonged working in poor light.

Anne Rhodes

One strike held locally in 1893, in Featherstone, by desperate miners wanting improved conditions, were shot at by the Military and two people were killed -­‐ James Gibbs (22) and James Duggan (25) were to die of their injuries, and several were wounded. Neither man who died it seems, had b een involved in creating a disturbance or involved with the mines, Gibbs had walked across the fields from nearby Loscoe to see what was going on.

Then there was the General Strike of 1926 which lasted many months, and ended with the majority of miners going back to work from sheer hunger.

Anne Rhodes

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

LOOK BACK IN ANGER Coal which for years we’d clamour

And then, of late, the ultimate –

was dirty, old fashioned and lacking in glamour.

A coalfield strike.

Past generations had conflicting relations but there was a closeness in the mining community, one possession they all shared -­‐ and that was poverty.

Coal once meant wealth and glee for the landed aristocracy beneath whose land we found it.

To preserve at all cost what the rest of the country had already lost, to hang onto occupations performed by families for generations.

To win was critical.

Never political.

Communities splintering before the strike

But it meant death and poverty

now welded together with a communal psyche,

for the men who mined it.

organising travelling pickets,

serving a communal meal,

Some saw it as a mineral odd,

blunting the hardships,

a destiny-­‐shaping gift from God,

bonding a communal feel,

building our civilisation,

fired to be a protestor

making a prosperous nation.

worthy of an ancestor.

Devotion to a profession,

This was a time when coal was fun

fighting government oppression.

though mining it was a dangerous one,

building a new coal-­‐fired world

Disappeared, gone, lost forever,

where the empire’s flags unfurled.

death throes of a lost endeavour

Exciting engines of steam with unlimited possibility

To conserve and simply be

Industrial revolutions supreme, a magnificent society.

A close-­‐knit mining community.

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

Leaders will lead

Aware of what is often said –

and will become decresent.

it’s easy to blame the dead.

Of all escape mechanisms,

An arranged state funeral –

Death is the most efficient.

sad and wrong to criticise it

but,

It’s hard to measure the depth of feeling

with her love of privatisation,

that left the mining community reeling,

this funeral –

the sacrifice of an industry

why not privatise it?

for political dogma and expediency.

Harry Godber April 2013

On 8th April 2013, Margaret Thatcher died. She had been PM during the1984/85 miner’s strike.

Her funeral, like many of her policies, caused considerable controversy.

External to the pit, are the waste stacks,

sometimes called slag heaps or shale heaps, depending on where you come from. These are huge piles of shale and other waste brought out of the mines and dumped. If a pit is working for many years, these shale heaps can be quite a few in number. In Aberfan in 1966 – tip No 7 started to slide. It had been started in 1958 of tailings, which are what remain after coal-­‐cleaning. The slide was initiated by the combination of tailings and water from a nearby stream combined to make soft mud – known as thixotropy – and once the bottom of the tip started to move, the whole pile slid inexorably downwards, burying a farm, 20 houses, a Junior School and part of the adjacent Senior School. In total, 144 people died.

Anne Rhodes

Floods can occur when an old working is accidentally broken into, or the tunnel is too close to the sea floor. As mines became more mechanised, the pit became noisier and the miners could no longer “hear” the coal “talking” – either the props creaking or the dull thud indicating a crack when the coal is struck by a pick handle.

In the pit yard, the railways that carried coal to market occasionally caused accidents. I personally nursed a man who had a bilateral amputation of his legs in one such accident.

Anne Rhodes

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

BACKWARDS IN TIME Out of the darkness draught

Coal-­‐dust soaks into every pore,

blows along the echoing tunnel.

fatigue etches on each face.

Smell of coal dust, dirty.

Passed from hand to hand

Noise of picks, shovels and feet,

large lumps of coal, manhandled.

candle flickering through the dark

Narrow passage on hands and knees,

narrow passage, on hands and knees.

candle flickering through the dark.

Large lumps of coal, manhandled,

Noise of picks, shovels and feet,

passed from hand to hand.

smell of coal dust – dirty -­‐

Fatigue etches on each face,

blows along the echoing tunnel.

coal-­‐dust soaks into every pore.

Out of the darkness, draught.

Anne Rhodes April 2013 The inspiration for this poem arises from an image of how coal mining was done for centuries until within living memory, with the minimum of equipment, no regard for safety or the terribly difficult and dangerous working conditions.

I chose to use palindromic verse, where the poem is repeated line by line from the end to the beginning, because I felt that the repetition with fractionally different pauses, emphasises the darkness, danger and fatigue of the work being done.

By the 1960’s coal consumption was in d ecline, and some pits were closed. This decline in production led in 1984-­‐95 to a year-­‐long strike (the miners were trying to p reserve their jobs) which in the end was defeated. Two miners took the NUM to court because of a dispute about the legality of the strike ballots – the NUM was fined £200,000 but refused to pay and sent its assets abroad. Because of this miners were unable to claim any benefits. Soup kitchens were available, but many men went b ack to work because of the hardship involved. A working miner in Castleford was brutally beaten for strike-­‐ breaking. In the end the miners went back to work led by brass bands and banners, but further closures followed, and there are now only one or two mines in production.

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

SCHOOL TRIP

by John Fleming Pete hoped that the children would enjoy their school trip. They were going to the National Coal Mining Museum. He had taken them up to the school and waved them off, clutching their packed lunch and flasks. He hoped they appreciated his culinary skills, all five minutes of it.

Their mother was away working, leaving him to act as househusband and father to two ten year old children. He hoped they were old enough to appreciate their visit.

They rushed in clutching pamphlets.

“Did you enjoy yourselves?”

Ruth and Isaac both considered their answer.

“Well, Dad, we did, but Anna didn't” “All she did was moan”, Ruth added.

“Her mum wasn't there to hold her hand.”

“Come on Isaac, you held her hand.”

Pete interrupted them. “Don't start squabbling. Did you enjoy it?”

The children rolled their eyes. “Dad, we just said we did.”

“Did you go down the pit?”

“Oh yes. That's when Isaac was holding Anna's hand!”

Isaac protested “No I didn't.”

“Stop it you two. I'm in no mood for you squabbling” The children looked suitable contrite.

“Isaac, tell me about it” “Well we got some helmets with lights on and a rather heavy battery, and went in this lift down this shaft. Mr Lewis nearly knocked his helmet off. It was cold down there. There was this boy by a hatch.”

“Not a real boy. Only a model “Ruth interrupted.

“I know he was model! He had to work a door so his Mum could pass out the coal his Dad had cut out. Why wasn't he at school?”

“Well school wasn't compulsory in those days.”

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

“Oh!” The children considered whether not going to school was a good thing or not.

“Also men used to take their family down because they couldn't afford to pay anyone to help them. And if they didn't work, they starved. No benefits in those days. And remember no electricity, no machinery, only picks and shovels, and dust and dirt. And candles for light.”

Ruth looked puzzled. “Couldn't they have gone to the workhouse? And wouldn't there have been a danger of explosion. Granddad showed me his miner's lamp.”

“Yes there was. And who told you about the workhouses?”

“Mr Lewis.”

Isaac asked, “Would you take me and Mum down the mine?

“Good Lord no. Firstly it’s illegal, secondly no mines, thirdly your mum would bend a frying pan over my head if I even suggested it!”

“That's all right. Mum thinks you've such a thick head you wouldn't notice it.”

“Thank you Ruth! Upstairs, the pair of you.”

He wondered if he was good role model for the children. He staying at home, while their mother worked, mainly because she earned twice the salary he could ever earn. It didn't look good in a community of ex miners, especially when he had never gone near a mine. Not many of those in Devon!

When Rosalind came home from work, Pete told her about the trip.

“I'm glad they enjoyed it. Ruth was right about you and the frying pan!”

“Oh thank you. I suppose you want me to eat dry bread and wear sackcloth and ashes.”

“Talking about ashes, did Mum's coal turn up?” Pete's father-­‐in-­‐law had been a pit deputy, and got redundancy when his pit ran out of coal. And a free supply of coal.

April 2013

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

HOW I BECAME WOOLLY DUCK

By Jan Holliday Miners, I was to learn, have a love for nick names and I soon got mine on E Ward, the male orthopaedic ward which often had a few miners with pots on various limbs. These men were usually strong, fit, youngish chaps to whom a limb in plaster of paris was a boring inconvenience. To pass the time they loved to tease the young nurses and thought it was great if they could raise a blush; they were however never rude or crude and if one swore he was soon reminded to “watch it”.

The incident was so silly and simple; one miner with his leg up in traction threw a book across the ward to his mate in the bed opposite. I happened to be walking up the ward taking temperatures and came into the line of fire. My name, being at that time Wolstencroft, was already shortened to Woolly and a third miner shouted a warning, “Woolly, duck!”

I did but not before my cap went spinning down the ward with the book. Laughter resounded up and down the beds and forever after, during my 12 week stint on that ward, that was what I was called whenever matron or the ward sister were out of earshot. I loved nursing the miners because they were always up for a joke and full of tricks.

April 2013

Explosions occurred frequently, often triggered by naked flames when gas was present, though there could be other triggers. In 1815 the Davey Lamp was invented .This lamp is a wick lamp with the flame enclosed in such a fine mesh that the flame cannot propagate through. Anne Rhodes.

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

HERE IN THE NORTH The man from the South arrived by train

Ignorance at a distance, who kids who?

smelling coal dust in the air, and wondered

Up here. Here in the North.

what it was.

Not as he had expected

The man from the South went home,

the Yorkshire stone buildings permanently black,

leaving it all behind, just another business trip,

the people unaware of anything untoward.

Up here. Here in the North.

a funny taste left in the mouth and in the mind -­‐ so different from Surrey.

The importance of coal to these people!

The man from the South met the client.

Everything normal, but an undertone was there.

Up here. Here in the North.

The men from the North watched him

Accents said it all,

leave,

agendas and prejudice-­‐real and imagined.

knew that he never understood, nor ever

recent history, bad blood and politics.

would.

Up here. Here in the North

The South a different planet.

Mining that meant so much and took so

The man from the South saw black

many.

silhouettes

Coal was the master and not the slave.

of wheels across the landscape, many now

Up here. Here in the North.

still.

Collieries silent in death,

Howard Osborne

new industries and jobs just a pipedream.

April 2013

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

VISIONS

By Allen Grandidge Enter the cage with trepidation with thoughts of men that have gone before. Had they chosen to be miners or did their birth location thrust them forth? Given a choice would any man decide that this was to be his vocation, descending into the bowels of the earth to scrape away that black carbon rock so prized by our ancestors?

This coal provided us with the Industrial Revolution, firing the engines that produced power through steam that drove the wheels of looms and lathes, pumps and locomotives, powering the barges that sliced along the canals delivering, amongst other products, the coal itself.

Men were emancipated, able to move away from the low paid farming jobs, but, to what? The mines paid better, but not much. If you were strong and young and you could dig solidly for hours on end, bless you. If not, then you would be better on the land.

As the cage carries you down there is a fear of the unknown. What will I feel like with all this earth pressing down on me and my fellow visitors? Will there be enough air to breathe? Will we feel like men did on their first journey to the bottom of this mine? Fear of the unknown can humiliate even the strongest of men!

Sounds carry along the galleries, sound of miners past, their spirits lingering. They call to warn you, ghostly boys and girls with their faces unsmiling, showing despair, look at you, wondering why you are there.

“I had no choice. My family needed the money,” they whisper. Small children, less than 10 years old, their spirits trapped in this place. They died forlorn, still yearning form their mother’s love.

Grown men too, their bodies broken, lie among the dust that they created, wondering when that God of mankind will eventually free them from the grasp of that devil that trapped them here, among the debris of King Coal.

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

THE STORY OF HEMSWORTH LOCKOUT This is a story of Jack and Liz

The refusal to grant a pay award

Born in the eighteen seventies,

By a neutral arbitrator

Jack a strong uncouth miner,

Brought a political springboard

Liz his effusive wife,

And a struggle between miners and a dictator.

No woman finer.

Much of the story’s humorous, Much is unbelievable strife When a cruel stroke of fate Taught Liz and Jack to hate.

Almost everything that is wrote About the melting pot of relations, A story of strife and deprivations Fed from a political source Makes Jack what he is, Leaving him loud and coarse, Shaped by circumstance and politically intense.

The men locked out from their work, Families evicted from their homes, Set up a tented village With a gypsy camp syndrome And a similar disadvantage.

A hotel housed many of the young, Many mothers often wept Many hands were often wrung.

In their cause were they steeped.

Liz becomes political, joins the suffragettes Jack joins a miners’ choir,

He took his stance.

Travels the country in wagonettes,

Raising funds and support from every shire,

A mining altercation 02 to nineteen ten.

Getting support through feeling distraught.

The workplace, Hemsworth colliery.

A lockout and demonstration of men

Leaders gate crash the TUC,

Shape Jack and Liz,

Given ten thousand pounds to ease the pain

Makes Jack a better man and Liz what she is.

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

They receive their country’s sympathy,

But with wages less than before

While Kier Hardy visits Hemsworth

Capital had a lot to answer for.

Over and over again.

How badly they were treated

And after years of struggle

Jack and Liz, affected by events,

Finally defeated.

Their children in the hotel

While they were housed in tents,

In this story of man and wife

Peel back the surface slightly,

Of victimisation, deprivation and hate

They suffer despair and despondence almost nightly.

The people, employment and politics

Are difficult to separate.

Hemsworth is Labour’s safest seat.

The story has a resonance

They don’t count votes but weigh them they say.

In today’s debate

Victory is certain anyway

Of morals in politics

And it’s almost the same today.

Of political weight.

The mine was eventually sold and then

It’s a story of people tested far.

The owner offered work for all the men

It’s the story that’s made them what they are.

Harry Godber

Strikes started in 1903 about pay. An independent arbitrator awarded the men more wages but the colliery owner, Fosdyck, refused to pay.

In 1905 the men were locked out. Turned out of their homes by the police they lived in tents.

In 1907 the colliery was sold and men returned to work but with no pay increase. Some men who had been active in the strikes were victimised and were still out of work in 1910. HG

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PIT MUCK -­‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS

REMEMBER, REMEMBER

By Ian Downing It was, as always, bitter cold and a steady drizzle was falling. Remember, remember the 5th of November. Tom remembered, would always remember, could never forget. He pulled his coat tighter; the bitter cold wouldn't keep him away, not today. He knelt by the gravestone that stood with so many others, all rising above a wasteland of unkempt grass.

In loving memory.

There had been so many senseless deaths, so many wasted lives, people less than human cast aside while the few grew rich. Here lie the poor, here lie his mother and father not much older than he is now. Here lie generations of the poor forced to work endless hours in the darkness, in the pit of hell just to earn enough to keep a sagging roof over their heads, faded clothes on their back and food even vermin would find hard to eat. Here they lie before their time, at least now in peace free from their toil.

Remember, remember.

Remember the day the earth collapsed.

Remember the day of the grim reaper.

Remember, remember.

Tom was twenty-­‐four now, a fine figure of a man that his parents would never see, never show a smile full of pride. He fought hard to hold back the tears and the anger that welled up inside him. For too many years that anger had shaped him, it shaped him still. He looked beyond the dark gravestones to the old church he'd been taken to every Sunday to sing praise and to pray to a God that had made little sense to him then and made little sense to him now.

God made man in his likeness and the devil sent them into the pit.

Remember, remember.

How he longed to forget.

As a young man his dreams contained only endless darkness and the sadness of his mother's eyes. He would never forget the look on her face every time she'd held him close before they descended to the pit of hell, to the eternal darkness. He would never forget the guilt he saw in his father's eyes.

It wasn't your fault mum, dad. It wasn't your fault.

He looked up and blinked at the light of a weak sun. The rain had stopped but he still felt cold.

The light always amazed him; even night contained some of it but the pit had contained none, Cntd

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whether outside it was summer or winter. Down in the bowels of the earth sitting by the wooden door he had opened and closed day after day after day no season existed, nothing existed but the groans of his mother and father as they toiled endlessly, digging away at the devil's stone.

He remembered once that his father had said that only death would set them free and death had set them free, had set his mother and father free though by a miracle he still lived. He lived yet still he dreamed of that day, dreamed every day.

I wish you could see me now, Mum, Dad. The stone was rough, cheap. He'd not been able to afford more at the time but had sworn he'd not let their deaths pass as if they'd never been, as if they were of no worth. He guessed to the mine owners they had no value, were easily replaced. Guessed they'd be counting the money lost not lives lost.

'I love you both.'

He placed the red roses he'd brought with him in the vase by the stone, kissed his hand then touched their names, felt them near. Closed his eyes as the sun's ray hit the stone.

We love you son.

Six he'd been when first he'd been taken down the pit. His mother had tears in her eyes his father didn't look at him. He should have been at school learning but like many in his village school was just a dream, the pit had always been his future, they could afford no other.

How ironic that their deaths had been the path to a new future for him. There had been no family to take him in and his future had looked uncertain, grim but he'd been taken in by a middle aged couple who'd prayed for years for a child but had remained barren. A good couple, he'd been seven when the accident had happened now he was twenty-­‐four, a man, a man with a future and a mission.

He touched the gravestone again.

'Never again mum, dad. Never again.'

It had been a dream, his only dream, to become a lawyer, to fight the mine owners and to bring an end to the use of children in the darkness of hell. To force the owners with their great wealth to pay a decent wage and to improve safety.

It had been a dream, now it was a reality.

As he looked beyond the grave to the distant silhouette of the pit of his youth he raised his fist up into the sky and as he did so the sun broke through the cloud and a ray of light shone upon the church and lit up the words engraved above the old wooden door: When a sparrow dies God sees and cares, how much more so when a man dies?

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COAL Coal was once our greatest need,

Salt of the earth,

upon this we are all agreed.

treated others as a brother,

Coal ran through British culture.

always willing to help each other

Britain released the genie, coal,

in conditions mysterious and dangerous

more than any nation,

and absolutely to the body, ruinous.

becoming part of the British soul.

My memory is my treasure

Coal transformed society,

Reflections often metaphor

it shaped the fate of nations,

As I write of my life journey

launched empires, triggered wars,

More and more.

suffered poor industrial relations.

My journey starts in nineteen thirty -­‐

Make my day, let my verses flow.

Upton Colliery starts producing coal,

Graces will follow in their places,

mining with modern crudity.

that, I know.

On human life it took its toll.

The symbolic importance of the miner

Upton’s steam winder with its cages two

was greater than their number.

fastest in the country -­‐

No one could be finer.

half a mile accrue,

shared work with the reaper.

From a unique mixture of awe,

sympathy guilt and fear

Fearing his deadly sweep,

that these men suffered then

each draw gulping thirty men

and long before, for many a year.

coughed and rattled hoarsely, coarsely

and never seemed to notice them.

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An ugly and dehumanising force

Dignity, strength and morality –

showing no remorse,

of miners lives, I often tell.

exhausting fumes of steam

continuing on its course.

This life that shaped my thinking

I don’t recall the first attack

My memories are my coinage,

that left my spirits sinking,

my sociological purse,

made me angry. Looking back

my sample of activity,

and recalling men so fine

my snapshots told in verse.

who got their education

from working down the mine.

This she-­‐devil of a mine

with its fickle mood

Until, in nineteen sixty four,

took revenge on human lives

This she-­‐devil mine exploded

and left men’s homes subdued.

and made her final draw

and the manager was a manager no more.

In thirty four years of production

No one took the blame – his salary

fifty two men lost their lives

remained the same.

and created necrality, making widows from wives.

A way of life, hard work and strife, they valued ponies more than men.

What’s one more for the coffin?

Ponies are expensive – they’ll get a man for nothing.

Isn’t that just pensive?

I have a love of history, I’ve learnt from it as well.

Now most miners are gone, my vintage years I spend with facts, hard to comprehend.

I’ve moved on with my life.

Between now and then, I’ve met important people but never better men.

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I’ll never lose the image

My age has paid a toll,

of conditions that I saw.

things are as they will be

I still salute the miners,

I owe it to the Lord

I’ll always take their side

for my thoughts and memory.

I’m filled with admiration

I speak of them with pride.

Harry Godber April 2013

Much of the land under which coal was found, belonged to just a few very rich men. Some rapacious owners were determined to get every ounce of value out of the coal, and had very little sympathy for the hard-­‐working miners, and were reluctant to pay a living wage. As an example, in the 1860s the Duke of Portland’s annual income from coal under his estates amounted to more than £100,000. (An equivalent of £20 million nowadays). At that time a miner’s wage would have been about £50 per year (which equates to £10,000). This is less than £1 per week, and a miner’s wife could probably need 16 shillings (80p) to keep a family of nine in a small cottage.

Equally, there were about 3,000 mines held by small companies with little finance available for modernisation. There were 394 pits in the East and West Ridings, alone.

Methane gas, or firedamp, is formed by the decay of the vegetable matter in ancient swamps. Much of the gas was retained with the pores of the coal as it formed and held there by the pressure of the strata above, but mining reduced the pressure and allowed the methane to escape. Methane burns violently and the shock of the flame drives coal dust into the air – and that explodes, causing serious accidents and disasters.

Another cause of death was slowly choking in the carbon monoxide resulting from the blast.

Anne Rhodes

Anne Rhodes

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THE PIGEONS

by Diane Galloway Millie, three years old, wakes up. A slice of pale white light cleaves a passage through the gap in her green bedroom curtains and falls across the bedspread creating a stripe that travels as far as the opposite wall. The rest of the room looks like it’s underwater.

Millie wonders if today will be the day when the pigeons come home. It has become a matter of life or death, like avoiding a crack on the pavement or not walking under a ladder. If the pigeons come home her father will come home too. She’s got it all planned. It will be a Sunday and after he’s fed the pigeons they’ll walk across the fields. The sun will be shining and she’ll be wearing her new cotton frock. Her father will tell her the names of the different birds and show her where to look for primroses. If the bluebells are out in the wood they’ll pick a bunch for her mother who is busy cooking the Sunday dinner and if she gets tired he’ll lift her up onto his shoulders.

When they get home her mother will be rosy-­‐cheeked from the heat of the oven. She’ll clap her hands when she sees the flowers and straight away put them in the blue and white jug that stands on the windowsill. There will be Yorkshire puddings and roast beef with gravy, and after dinner she will draw all the things she’s seen on her walk in the giant jotter that Father Christmas brought her.

A quick glance through the window shows that the yard is empty, the pigeon loft silent. She misses the smoky-­‐grey birds and the soft noise they make, like they’re gargling with peas, but most of all she misses her father. Her mother misses him as well. Millie has seen her rocking on her heels, crying into a teacloth, her white face puffy like rising dough. Sometimes she sees her burying her face in his jacket.

Her father has had an accident at the pit her mother says, and he’s gone to a place called Heaven where the angels are looking after him. Millie’s grandma went to Heaven when she broke her hip. When she was better her father took her to see her and she said, “Those nurses are angels. They looked after me a treat.”

Millie’s father’s things are waiting for him too; his shaving soap and razor on the bathroom shelf, his toothbrush in a glass, his slippers by the kitchen fire, his Johnnie Ray records on top of the radiogram. Lots of cards are waiting for him to read, cards from all his friends saying they’re sorry about his accident. Her mother calls them Cards of Sympathy.

Her father’s smell is all over the house; a mixture of leather, damp wool, shaving soap, boot polish and Brylcreem. A black hair is caught in the velvet of his favourite armchair, his newspaper under the seat where he left it.

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The day before yesterday a man called Charlie came to take away the pigeons. He came in a big red truck. Charlie had hair like grated carrots and white skin with freckles like nutmeg on rice pudding. Millie sat on the step and watched him as he gently scooped up the pigeons one by one and put them into baskets like picnic hampers.

“There’s a knack to it,” he said, “you’ve got to hold ‘em gentle-­‐like yet firm, give ‘em a bit of a stroke, talk to ‘em softly, make cooing sounds, treat ‘em like a girlfriend.” He laughed showing a chipped front tooth.

“I’ll look after ‘em real good and if the odd un comes back here, I’ll come out and fetch it,” he promised. “It may take a while for ‘em to get used to their new surroundings.”

That was two days ago. Millie has looked for the pigeons every day. Not a single one has come home. She dresses and goes downstairs to the kitchen. There’s porridge, toast, and strawberry jam. Her mother takes the milk out of the shiny new fridge that her father has worked overtime for and kicks the door shut as if she’s angry with it. Millie eats her porridge and takes her toast outside.

“Don’t go far, Millie,” her mother calls after her.

It is a misty spring morning, the sun hiding in a sky that looks like stretched muslin.

“Come here, Millie, I’ve got summat to show you.” Billy Tickle is standing at the gate. Billy lives in the same street. He’s a lot older than Millie. He’s in his second year at school and he can read books by himself and ride a two-­‐wheeler bike. Billy’s wearing wellies, his knees are scabbed, his short trousers held up with braces. His thin face is gleeful and sly like that of a greedy fox that’s discovered how to barbecue chickens. When Millie gets up close she sees he’s hiding something in cupped hands. He opens them slowly and they part like the two halves of a nutshell revealing a mouse, its head hanging by a bloody thread.

“Poor thing,” says Millie.

Billy’s smile disappears. “I thought you’d scream,” he says.

“What happened?”

“Cat got it. It’s dead,” says Billy.

“Will it go to heaven?”

“S’pose so.”

“Will it come back when the angels have made it better?”

“Nah, it ain’t ever coming back.”

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“My grandma went to heaven. She had an operation and came back.”

“That was the hospital, Silly. Heaven’s where you go when you’re dead.”

Millie tries to speak but there’s a lump in her throat the size of an egg.

“I’m going to find a box and we’ll bury it and say a prayer,” says Billy, and he runs off, the mouse’s tail dangling like a broken shoelace.

Millie walks slowly into the kitchen. Her mother is chopping vegetables.

“You didn’t stay out long,” she says. Millie trembles. She suddenly feels cold. When she speaks the words come out in a whisper.

“They’re not coming back, are they?”

Her mother understands perfectly.

“No, Millie. They’re not coming back,” she says, and somehow Millie finds herself on her mother’s lap. She buries her face in her mother’s softness and the tears come fast and furious as a waterfall. Together they wet each other through, and when they’ve both cried enough tears to fill a washing-­‐up bowl, Millie thinks it’s time to help Billy bury the mouse. But before she goes she needs to ask her mother a question.

“What colour were Daddy’s eyes?” she says.

Her mother kisses the top of her head. “They were blue, Millie,” she says softly. “Just like yours.”

April 2013

By the 1300’s coal was being mined for industrial purposes such as brewing, d yeing, lime-­‐ making. This lime was used to make mortar when building the many Castles which appeared in that era.

Transport of coal sometimes caused a problem. The North-­‐East used coastal shipping, and on the roads coal was d elivered by horses pulling big carts. Eventually the railroads were built, and these were used extensively, and ironically these same railways also u sed the coal for power.

Anne Rhodes

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TOM'S TALE Mi Mam, mi Dad, they work at Moorend Pit, An' sister Jenny, down the Huskar 'ole.

They leave before the dawn has broken through; Can find the way e'en when the sky is black.

I stumble on alone, I know I'm slow, Mi gammy leg don't work the way it should; That's why I'm with the hosses, in the stall; I clean 'em, feed 'em, bed 'em all wiv straw.

Mi works not 'ard, not like it is for Dad, 'E works the seam face, gettin', winnin' coal; An' Mam fills up the corves the best she can,

I reckon she don't like it, down the pit, She's lonely an' she's frightened, I can tell.

Sometimes I hear her whimper, call for Mam, At 'ome in bed 'er nightmares are of rats.

The Deputy's a good man, an' 'e's kind, 'E gives me all 'is crusts when it's bait* time; But Jonas Clarke, the boss, who owns Moorend, 'E shouts, 'e don't 'ave no good words for us.

One day when I'm growed up, I think I'll leave' I'll travel, work wiv 'osses in the light; An' Jenny can come wiv me if she likes,

Her belly swollen with 'er unborn bairn.

P'raps a circus man will tek us on.

An' little Jenny sits the whole day through

She might be learned to walk along a wire,

Aside a wooden door, wiv rope in hand,

An' I could mek 'er laugh jus' like a clown,

She listens for the sound of hooves an' toil,

We'd send some pennies 'ome, ter Dad an' Mam,

It's pitch black dark, 'er candles all burnt out.

An they could get the 'ell out of that 'ole!

Janet Niepokojczycka April 2013

*bait = food. This poem was inspired by a recent visit to the National Coal Mining Museum and by reading excerpts from Children of the Dark by Alan Gallop where I learnt of the terrible Huskar Pit disaster of 1838 when 26 children drowned in the mine near Silkstone.

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BIG NUMBERS I was writing a poem about the Prince of Wales pit

Just a few years before, in one-­‐eight fifty seven,

On the outskirts of Pontefract, I was researching it

One hundred and eighty nine souls blew to heaven.

When I stumbled on stories of 19th century carnage

When Lundhill exploded with ground-­‐ shaking might

Of miners, when the owners were joining the peerage.

Seven sons of the Kellets all perished that night.

So great were the fires raging wild underground

It happened in Barnsley and villages about The scandalous loss of lives snuffed out In numbers so large it looked like the wars Of the 20th century had come to their doors.

That a stream was diverted as the only means found To quell the inferno; but flooding the mine Meant recovering the bodies would take a long time.

The worst was Oakes Colliery one grey December day When three hundred and forty one lives blew away.

In blast after blast after blast after blast 100 remained missing; they abandoned that task.

Just two large disasters of the many that befell The men, boys and girls doing jobs close to hell Hard-­‐wired in the fabric of village life evermore

Outsiders just don’t get it, they don’t know the score.

Seamus Healy

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A GRAND DAY OUT

by Allen Grandidge.

Hemsworth Writers, a group of mainly pensionable aged people, arrived at Caphouse Colliery on a wet grey Wednesday in March.

We left the warmth of the minibus and walked quickly across the car park through the entrance and into the warmth of the shop and a greeting by our lady guide who showed us into a room where we received a booklet and a map of the site. Our tutor gave us a few pointers about the colliery, after which we were given a time when we would all collect at the Lamp Room to be fitted with helmets and heavy sealed batteries, complete with a small lamp that we had to carry.

Before that, we then had some time to inspect the pit-­‐top workings, some of which seemed rather rudimentary; all miners, whatever their particular job, needed a bath when their shift was finished and these baths at Caphouse must have been the very basic design. I doubt anybody stayed in them very long.

There is very little room to manoeuvre in the locker area – there would be a group of men trying to undress from coal dusted shirts and pants, placing these in to a dirty locker before grabbing a piece of soap to cross a draughty passageway where other men were dodging into the shower room, searching for a space under a body-­‐warming downpour of fresh clean water.

The return walk to collect clean clothes must have dampened the spirits of these men and I should imagine that no time was wasted pulling on their day clothes.

Connected to the pithead baths we found a medical room where models of nurses and even a dentist were on show. There we heard recordings of what sounded like working for the health of the pit men.

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Next we went to the pit yard where we found stables for the pit ponies. As a child I, with my sister and cousin, were allowed to visit the ponies at Acton Hall Colliery, our Uncle being the Yard Foreman. Most of these ponies were tiny, probably Shetland or maybe Moor but all seemed to have cloudy eyes and sniffed around our hands for the odd apple or piece of bread and the occasional bag of oats (provided by Granddad who was a Joinery Shop Foreman and lived in a house backing onto the pit yard).

At Caphouse there wasn’t any sign of ponies so we searched around the yard and found a larger horse cropping grass, his head hanging over the top of the fence, reaching for grass that should have been beyond his reach -­‐ but this is typical animal behaviour.

There was a shunter stood beneath a section of the screens (the place where coal is washed and sorted). The shunter is a steam engine used for moving trucks around the pit estate, full ones ready to be collected, empty ones in readiness for filling. A few of the old wooden-­‐sided engines were close by.

At last the time arrived when we were to assemble at the pit shaft to collect our headgear and be fitted with our lamps. We were introduced to our guide for the duration of our visit below ground and he gave us a quick summary of what we would be doing and a choice of helmets to wear. There was a large container filled with said headgear and we dipped our hands in and took a suitable one. Then he asserted that woolly hats would have to be left behind and our watches and mobile phones were all potentially dangerous being battery driven. A spark in the dark plus any gas and we would all be history. Thanks mate!

Our lamps were all original colliery tested equipment with a large heavy battery slung around the waist with a hand-­‐held light. These would normally be fitted to the colliers’ helmet but our helmets didn’t have the necessary lamp bracket. We handed our bags containing our phones Cntd 33

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etc. to the Lamp Room attendants for safe-­‐keeping and leaned over a glass-­‐topped shaft trying to see a small light many feet below while our guide encouraged us to stand on the glass with the words, “It’s safe enough.” It didn’t encourage many of our group though.

Stepping into the cage to go below ground we knew it would be like using a normal lift but there was the thought that this was not an ordinary trip. Standing there we watched the brick-­‐ lined shaft and one began to wonder of the men who lined the shaft. Was the hole dug to its deepest depth before the bricks were laid? Was the whole shaft reinforced with steel first or was the surrounding fabric held back by wooden struts and boards? A question I didn’t get to ask.

At the bottom we gathered together while our guide pointed out one or two things to us and I found out I had a faulty lamp – the light kept dipping to low which meant that every now and again I had to knock it against my other hand to encourage it to brighten. Luckily this sufficed and I was never left in the dark until we reached a point of interest where plastic models of a family were situated and the guide told us to switch off our lamps. I tried to cheat by holding my subdued lamp close to my chest, my neighbour holding his lamp to his back but, of course, our guide was aware of this trickery and switched our lights off for us. So, there we were in total darkness.

The small boy of the family, we were told, had to endure 12 hours of this darkness each day, his job to open a small door on a work area that his father and mother crept into together and worked nearly naked because the space was so small and their body heat soon made it unbearably hot. Children would start working as soon as they were capable of sitting on a small box holding a piece of string connected to the door and listening for the knock from Mother to open the door for her to shove in a container of coal. Meanwhile her husband hacked away Cntd 34

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inside the hole. What fears did many children suffer for many hours because they couldn’t afford a candle which was itself a danger if gas escaped where they were working?

I thought back to my own childhood; there was nothing like that for my generation born during wartime and schooled during the forties and fifties. Leaving school at fifteen we were protected from dangers of all kinds. I was apprenticed into engineering and never knew what some of my schoolmates experienced working in the mines but I was assured by most of them that the work was hard and difficult but their safety was foremost and none had to crawl about in the dark.

Some have tragically paid with their health, suffering with emphysema and pneumoconiosis caused by breathing in the coal dust and also the stone dust that was laid down to hold down the finer coal and prevent it from flying around when a draught of air rushed in each time one of the gates opened.

Walking the galleries was akin to walking through a long tunnel. My thought before had been directed to what it would feel like knowing there would be so much earth above us but once down there you can see the amount of steel work protruding from the workplace. Each arch is a set distance apart with sheets of galvanised steel in between, holding the roof. One wonders who the men were that did this work and how long ago.

As we traversed the different galleries there was a constant reminder from the tannoy system of men calling out instructions or asking for one thing or the other. Voices from the past entered our heads, images of men toiling with pieces of equipment dragging tubs of coal, connecting said tubs to the little workhorses, men squatting where they worked to drink from their ‘dudley’ (a water container) and eat a sandwich of bread and dripping or if they were lucky a piece of cheese.

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There were a number of models of men doing their work, like the shot firer. At one point our guide tried to kid everybody that a couple of sticks of dynamite would explode if dropped; I don’t think he convinced anybody because when he did drop them, nobody flinched.

There are areas in the mine where machines had taken over from miners, digging large swathes of coal to keep our power stations working, something that should be reconsidered by our politicians if we are to be self-­‐sufficient in our energy. Wind farms, as known by anybody with common sense, are useless and the cost is being kept quiet! Cheaper to return to coal!

At the end of the underground tour we were invited to select a small piece of coal as a souvenir and then made our way back to the shaft for our return ride back to the pit top, where we removed our lamps and helmets, handed them back to the lamp room staff and collected our bags. With a cheery goodbye we rushed to the café and a warm meal that proved to be excellent.

April 2013

During their early digging men came

across peat, lead, zinc and copper, and mined these as well. The after-­‐affects of lead-­‐mining are still felt by the hill-­‐ farmers of today due to the poisoning of the land by the lead brought to the surface.

However, eventually the pits they dug for other things became less and less productive, and coal was the only thing that continued to be mined on a regular basis, over more and more of this country.

By 1900 approximately two-­‐ thirds of the world’s trade in coal came from Britain.

Coal was u sed in the production of many different trades, such as iron and steel making, and by different forms of transport requiring large steam-­‐powered engines, as well as factories. It was also used in the production of gas for lighting towns and houses.

Anne Rhodes

Anne Rhodes

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IMAGINE I try to think of something good to say of coal And struggle.

An empire was built on it you say But at what cost say I.

Many died, Many had cause to wish for death, No one smiled.

As a career choice it rates as zero, As the pits.

God buried the black stuff deep underground,

Don't go down the mines my son,

Out of harm’s way,

Don't.

Deep in the bowels of the earth.

Surely He had His reasons.

Is there anything good to say of coal?

I struggle,

Like moles men tunnelled into the earth.

Smile, Yes, the mines have gone away.

Ian Downing April 2013

In medieval times coal was obtained

by making bell pits – which were simply short vertical shafts taken down to the coal level, and then widened in a bell shape to extract the coal. When a certain amount of coal had been extracted the bell collapsed due to lack of support, and the workers moved a little further along the land and dug another shaft into the same coal seam.

Sometimes, because of difficulty of access, adits (small horizontal tunnels) were dug instead. Early coal was known as sea cole because it had originally been found washed up on the North East coast from cliffs or undersea outcrops.

Anne Rhodes

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A GLIMPSE INTO THE MINERS’ WORLD

By Gwyneth Brown The road was black and airless. The right pad had spun round to the back of my knee and there was very little room to manoeuvre as I stopped to adjust it. Helmets knocking on the low roof of the seam made a pop, pop sound which faded into the distance as the rest of the party moved on. They were not aware I had dropped behind because the miner leading the group was at the front. I could no longer hear them and panic began to rise as I found myself totally alone in the silent airless, dusty, black space. It was absolute sensory deprivation. My heart thumped in my chest and I could barely breathe. Pull yourself together and crawl. They can’t be far away. He wouldn’t have brought you if it was dangerous or you could get lost I reasoned as I began creeping on all fours, quelling my fear and self-­‐pity.

The relief at hearing voices and seeing a chink of light was immense. The others were showing great interest in the cutting machinery and all the paraphernalia being displayed as the daily lot of the miners. No one had noticed I was missing or at least didn’t comment.

Covered in black coal dust and with a renewed respect for the men who lived most of their working days in the pits, we headed for a welcome shower.

That was an experience I have no desire to repeat in spite of the generosity of the Fryston pit in allowing us to see a little of a world alien to most of us.

I recall a later visit to the Mining Museum which also horrified me; I saw how women and children had worked in indescribable conditions in the coal mines. That visit also brought back memories of my local mining community with their metal snap* tins and the men’s black-­‐ rimmed eyes. I suppose I used to take these sort of things at face value, not understanding that the metal snap tins were really to keep mice out of the food and the pit boots and helmets with Cntd 38

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lamps were not just uniform accessories but absolute necessities.

I have other memories too; Coal Board employees used to receive a coal allowance. A ton of coal was usually tipped on the pavement outside of the house. The coal had to be shovelled and barrowed into the coal house and the pavement hosed down. Dogs, especially blond dogs, would frequently roll in the black coal dust – seemingly just to annoy their owners.

Coal fires both domestic and industrial spewed smoke out into the atmosphere and washing hanging on the line to dry was often smudged with sooty smears. Smog, frequently referred to as “pea soup” was a common feature during the autumn and winter months and when we walked outside in the smog we had black-­‐lined nostrils from breathing the polluted air.

Mortality and morbidity was higher then.

The closure of the pits brought fear and dread for the loss of men’s livelihoods and the fracturing of the local communities’ cohesion. Families were at loggerheads, one with another, during the ensuing strikes. SCAB was scrawled on walls when men chose to cross the picket lines. Desperation drove some men back to work to feed their families though some had savings to draw on for their survival whilst others went hungry. The situation spawned a breed of strong women who set up services for food distribution and the sharing of material resources to support the strikers and their families. Resentments still linger on after decades.

We miss the cosy coal fire and it is easy to look back with nostalgia on those days when coal was plentiful and cheap but it is important to remember that mining was a harsh and life-­‐ draining industry.

12/4/2013

*Snap is a local word for food, especially packed lunches etc.

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FEAR. Being a miner, a profession chosen for you-­‐

Stomach heaving as you fell

It had been the work your dad had to do-­‐

To face a life in inky black

You were not allowed to admit you were scared.

With blood and scratches on your back.

Your views and ideas would not be heard.

Four legged friends and two-­‐legged mates

And after all you had to do whatever your dad told you to.

On a trolley through the gates

Into a life you would only hate

No career advisor would be around.

To learn the skills long learned before,

Your life was committed to underground.

But you would be brave and show no fear,

So much to learn, so much to hate,

Just do as you are told now that you are here.

So much depended on your mate.

Shift time over and black-­‐ faced tramps

And so you went – young in age-­‐

Speed upward to return the lamps

Like an animal in a cage.

Speeding down, down to hell,

Amy Gott April 2013

Coal was formed from forests which date back to approximately 300 million years ago. The dead forestation formed into rocks, compressed by other formations above it. These other rocks were limestone, made from sea creatures; sandstone, deposited by ancient rivers, and then the true coal seams, which were interspersed with silty rock and ironstone. Over this period of millions of years, the different strata moved at different speeds, and this resulted in some coal seams being much deeper than others.

Anne Rhodes

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A MINING COMMUNITY

By Amy Gott Today was like a memory trip for me. I enjoyed my trip to Caphouse Colliery, now known as the National Coal Mining Museum.

I didn’t go down the pit. I had done it before so I spent my time looking at items that used to represent the way of life years ago. When I was born in 1930 my Dad was already a victim of the progress of mining. The advent of mechanical usage to get the coal, I was told, was more than my Dad’s nerves could stand and so he became unemployed.

In my village there were two mines with a third adjoining by an underground tunnel to the next village. Mining was the main occupation – this or farming – but if your Dad or Granddad had been a miner it was expected that you would also be one and in my brother’s case he was 14 when I was born so he became a miner. From this young age till he died in his eighties he never missed a chance to tell me that he worked to keep me as our Dad was on the dole when I was born.

I didn’t understand or care really what this meant till I was older, so my life went along very happily knowing that my Mam and Dad were always at home. I have thought since then that this was why my Mam and Dad used to fight sometimes due to work problems. My older brother who was 10 years older than me became a farm labourer and was never less than a very pleasant and humorous man, loved by everyone.

Dad had to move away sometimes for road clearing, drain digging, snow clearing, grave digging and at home he repaired our shoes and some belonging to the neighbours. He was also very clever with woodwork and loved music, playing the organ, piano and flute. Ours was a cash poor but happy home.

My Dad didn’t work full time again until the Second World War began, then he worked in the aircraft factory. My Mam did her part for the war effort organising charity events, housing Bevin boys and she became a surrogate mother for a whole orphanage of babies and nurses who were brought from the danger of bombs on the south coast to live in a local clinic. All the people we were connected with became very fond of our family and kept in touch for many years.

After the war was over my Dad went to work at the pit again and until he was 65 he worked on the pit top and in his latter years at work he was an assistant in the medical centre.

I am proud to be a product of a mining community.

April 2013

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JUST ANOTHER SHIFT Two thousand feet beneath the ground In dangerous space you move around Against the odds you must contrive To ‘fill-­‐off your stint’, and stay alive.

Strong men they are, a few are stronger Prepared to help those taking longer Than in their prime, of years ago This work is what they know.

It’s dark, you cannot see the dust Except in your lamp’s beam and just Before you breathe it in, you pray That nothing worse befalls your day.

Not three feet high the ceiling stands Ready to make its cruel demands Backed by a thousands of tons of rock An imminent, man-­‐made, seismic shock.

Your friends the props, stout men of wood Speak loud and clear, scream that you should Run for your life to a safer place The collapse is coming, it’s coming apace.

You can’t be there when the roof hits the floor In a raging dust-­‐storm, with a deafening roar.

But for miners, these matters of life and death Are spoken in ordinary breath.

Seamus Healy

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THE MINER’S WIFE

by Jan Holliday I was on an acute medic ward during my final year of training to become an S.R.N when I shed tears on duty. I haven’t use the real names of the people in this anecdote because not to name patients anywhere outside is a rule that I always keep.

The weather was at its worst that November. Dark icy wet days with the kind of fog that lingers about, getting into clothes and hair so that, when you entered a warm place, you could smell the soot on yourself.

The ward was so full that extra beds had been brought into the ward by porters. There were so many patients with chest conditions, congestive cardiac failure, bronchitis, asthma, as well as liver, kidney, stomach and other conditions.

We had a couple of miners on the ward with “the dust” or “a touch of dust” as they called it. Of course it was pneumoconiosis.

Young Joe, a man in his early fifties or late forties was admitted with exacerbation of chronic bronchitis. He’d caught a cold. Hewer or shearer was down in his case notes as his occupation, both jobs done in extreme dust conditions, I believe.

Joe Y was put on antibiotics, 4 hourly ventolin, nebuliser and oxygen as necessary. Observations were 4 hourly, day and night. He was still full of quips and daft sayings. “Do you know, nurse, this hotel is total crap compared to the Ritz. I’ve a mind to demand another room, or at least a bed not like a plank and a pillow not full of rocks.” Young Joe always asked about “me old mate, he were down the same shift as our lad.”

Old Joe was an old old man of sixty two, scarred with the blue tattoos of coal. He was brought straight to the ward with the oxygen mask on his face, breaths rattling and wheezing wetly with every rise and fall of his chest. The old man was barely conscious. His lips, ear lobes and tip of his nose were the slate-­‐blue/grey of progressive heart failure. Joe’s wife of many years was with him, carrying her knitting bag, a baby blue cardi on her needles, sitting by him, talking over her knitting. It is strange how the memory holds tiny incidental memories when faced with mortality.

The ward became a crazy place – a collapse in bed 12, the phone shrilling, announcing more admissions. Matron arrived to do a spot check round. It was bedlam, then the bed pan washer in the sluice, the door not being adequately locked sprayed two first year nurses with hot water.

It was then that Mrs Old Joe touched my arm and said, “He’s gone now Nurse, I’m going home. I can see how busy you are but I thought I’d better tell you.”

She walked away, back straight, head bowed with a dignity I can’t describe and I cried. I should have been there, someone should have. I should have.

That memory still haunts me. Miners have the bravest wives.

As for Young Joe, he went home, condition eased, probably to become an Old Joe. 43

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DAD My source is Wombwell, nineteen thirty four That stone cottage with a latch

Too young to understand and roam You are going to school said my Mother

Alas that cottage is no more

For Mother and me a wonderful hatch.

My school was the Methodist Church Dad was at work in the pit

She married the man of her choice, Waved family arrangements full stop Her reasons refusing to voice -­‐

Life state of happiness without search Next door our neighbour the blacksmith

Gave authoritarian father the chop

How could I know I would flee To my beloved Greece

The love of her life was a miner, Registered marriage Wombwell Feast week She was a marvellous discerner

When Dad ceased to be?

This Dad my homage you’ll see.

Rejected Reuben for Henry the meek South Kirkby became our new home

By now had a new baby brother

Shirley Goulas

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THE WRITERS Melvyn Brown was born and brought up in the Wakefield area. His father worked in the pits, as did his grandfather. Melvyn opted for a less dangerous life-­‐style and spent most of his working lifetime with people and their broken appliances. He enjoys poetry.

Jan Holliday was brought up in Ripon and had no contact with the mining industry until she nursed injured miners in Pinderfields Hospital in the mid 1060’s. Their often slanted, understated humour caused her some blushes, much admiration and a few tears shed in private. Jan enjoys writing about anything that grabs her attention, be it an overheard conversation or wondering why certain people buy what they do whilst waiting in the checkout queue.

Harry Godber has spent a lifetime in the mining industry. Born in 1930 he started work in 1944 at Upton Colliery. By the age of 20 he was a local councillor and NUM man. He’s been a member of the British Association of Colliery Management, a magistrate, a member of the Police Authority and has sat on the Police Negotiating Board at Home Office level. He enjoys writing poetry.

Anne Rhodes’ first memory is an out of body experience when she was a toddler, prior to having a kidney removed. Always with a book in one hand she worked as a secretary, nurse, and chiropodist, running these jobs in tandem with the time-­‐consuming hobby of historical re-­‐ enactment. She enjoys writing about her life experiences.

Lynda McCraight was born in Calverton, Nottinghamshire where her father worked as a mining surveyor. At 18 she moved to Yorkshire to train as a teacher of English language and literature, which she did for 35 years. Now retired, she joined a creative writing class in Hemsworth and realised-­‐ to her surprise-­‐ that the gentleman sitting next to her was the father of a very well-­‐ known Yorkshire playwright. She enjoys writing about moments from her own life and making people laugh. Sometimes-­‐ with a bit of luck -­‐ the two occur together.

Allen Grandidge was born in his maternal grandfather’s house in Thornhill Lees, Dewsbury and stayed there for the first few weeks of his life. He was then brought up in Featherstone, mainly in his father’s parents’ home. Allen spent his working life in engineering, married and brought up two sons. He enjoys writing short stories.

Diane Galloway was born and raised in Askern among a family of miners. She married a Scotsman and spent several years in Scotland where she once met the not-­‐yet-­‐famous Billy Connelly. She enjoys writing short stories.

Born in Dublin, Seamus Healy left there aged 12 and spent the next 50 years in Pontefract. He went to work as an electrician at Kellingley Colliery, then moved to area HQ as an electrical engineer where he worked on the very first TV monitoring system. He likes writing and reading poetry.

Marjorie Lacy was born and brought up in Leeds. She worked in shops and offices, married and brought up two children, then owned and ran hardware shops and retired aged 69. With more 45

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time on her hands she joined a creative writing class and found she could write prose and poetry.

Howard Osborne is originally from Essex but has lived and worked across the UK (and USA) and in Yorkshire for the last 20 years, so needs the phrasebook less often. Although never directly involved in mining, he has played cornet with local colliery brass bands, absorbing some of the culture indirectly. After several careers he is approaching retirement -­‐ a chance to resume several categories of creative writing Amy Gott, nee Smith is the product of a mining family. She was brought up in Featherstone in the 1920s and 1930s. The town is well-­‐known for its mining history and notorious for killings after a strike. From the late 1800s Featherstone was also known for rugby. Amy has worked in tailoring as well as being a wife, mother, nurse and carer.

Gwyneth Brown was born overseas, came to Yorkshire as a child and has lived most of her life in a mining area. She only ever wrote factual reports until her retirement when she became interested in creative writing.

Shirley Goulas was born in a stone cottage in Wombwell in 1934. As a young woman she worked as a nurse and counts herself very fortunate during her life to have had lots of interesting opportunities in her life. She tackles all challenges with enthusiasm and conscientiousness and always works to her best ability.

Janet Niepokojczycka was born in Nottingham, has lived most of her life in Cumbria and now lives in Hemsworth where she has rekindled her hobby of writing poems and stories. Her early career as a teacher led to a variety of jobs (many connected with tourism) and she is a qualified Blue Badge Guide for Cumbria. Her grandfather and great grandfather both worked in Nottinghamshire coalmines.

John Fleming was born and brought up in Devon and hence has no familial mining connections.

He worked as an engineering technician in mining areas such as South Wales, Lancashire and latterly, West Yorkshire. He tends to prefer writing scripts.

Ian Downing was born and brought up in Chesterfield and lived there until marriage brought him to Yorkshire. For many years his father worked as a first aider in the NCB. Ian is now the father of triplets, loves walking, photography and of course, writing poetry and fiction.

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