From Ushaw With Love, Life After Coal – YouTube

Published on 9 Oct 2014

A short film made over the summer in the North East of England. A beautiful place full of beautiful people. This is a small collection of memories. At its heart the film really wants people to engage with society and become more involved in there own communities.  Above all it is a very human project. “Neil Woodward”

Miners – 1950’s – Anderson, Brown

Miners – 1950’s – Anderson, Brown

Submitted on behalf of Margaret Thompson :

Many people may have seen this photograph in a certain publication, this is an original image, I can put names to three of the miners. Third from the left my uncle Oliver Anderson next to him his brother Fred Anderson, sixth miner is my dad Alan Brown, not sure who the others are (possibly 1950’s)

 

Ushaw Moor Historical Website – Commandments

Ushaw Moor Historical Website – Commandments.

During the Ryhope strike of 1932 feelings of animosity of the men towards the ‘masters’ was expressed in this composition:

The Coal Owner’s Ten Commandments

1. Thou shall have no other Master but me.

2. Thou shall not make for thyself comforts, nor the likeness of anything to thine own interest, neither on the earth above or the mine beneath. Thou shall bow down to me and worship me, for I am thy Master, and a jealous Master, and I will show you no mercy but endeavour to make you keep my commandments..

3. Thou shall not take the name of thy Master in vain, lest I sack thee at a minute’s notice.

4. Remember that thou work six days with all thy might, with all thy strength, and do all I want of thee, but the seventh day thou shalt stop at home and do no manner of work, but shall do all thou canst to recruit thine exhausted strength for my service on Monday morning.

5. Honour thy Master, his steward, and his deputies, that thy days may be long in the mine down which you work.

6. Thou shall have no unions.

7. Thou shall always speak well of me, though I oppose thee. Thou shall be content if I sometimes find thee work, and pay thee what I think.

8. Thou shalt starve thyself and thy children if it is to my interest.

9. Thou shall have no meetings to consider thy own interests, as I want to keep thee ignorant, and in poverty all the days of thy life.

10. Thou shall not covet thy Master’s money, nor his comforts, nor his luxuries, nor anything that is his.

The miners’ Unions of Northumberland and Durham

Meantime in the last week of December a strike began which was to ensure a sufficiency of incident for the next two years. Westoe, the lodge secretary of Ushaw Moor, was dismissed from the colliery for persistent absence, and for filling dirt among his coal 2 . The dismissal was but the outward sign of a wide- spread dissatisfaction. The owners said that the men had deliberately increased their lost time, at the moment some 23 per cent., as part of a general policy of restriction of output, and that the pit had come entirely under the control of the local union officials, who were men unfit for their responsible positions. The men complained of the general attitude of the manager: he was discourteous, overbearing, violent both in speech and action. In the hearing of Crawford he called the men “a set of lazy b s” 3 . It was an indiscretion he was not allowed to forget.

Ushaw Moor was a colliery with an unusually high proportion of Irish Catholic pitmen, and race and religion soon added their prejudice to what became almost at once an unnecessarily bitter struggle. If the actions of the manager shewed that he lacked

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via Full text of “The miners’ Unions of Northumberland and Durham”.

Facebook | Ushaw Moor Memories

Does anyone have any photos or info about the explosion down the pit as my Great Grandad William Timmons died in that. There was a massive funeral and photos but the photos we had as a family were given to the newspaper and they lost them.

Posted on behalf of Gillian Vargas

via Facebook | Ushaw Moor Memories.

Some Mining Personnel Of Old

Direct memories of its coalmine are fast fading in the village. Quite a few of the current generation are  employed in the service industry and covet designer goods rather than work in a dangerous and dirty mine with jam sandwiches at ‘bait’ time. Perhaps that is a good thing! I wonder if the following details are of some interest to the ‘young ones’ [as Cliff would describe them]:

The Colliery Manager, before Nationalization in 1947, was responsible to the colliery owner’s agent. He had to complete monthly and annual reports, construct plans and create estimates. He required a very good knowledge of mining engineering – even though he would have  professional engineers on site to cover electrical and mechanical aspects of the mining operations. He would have an under manager; I believe that after WW2 many of the newer under managers were ex university men. If you look on the Durham Mining Museum site you will have the opportunity to take one of the old colliery management exam papers –  set over a hundred years ago, if my memory serves me right.

Overmen could be described as supervisors. Their main aim was to ensure good coal outputs. They allocated work and monitored the number of men working for pay purposes. They kept an eye on conditions in the mine and ensured that the right materials were available at the right time. They were often wary of the manager and supported each other by ‘covering each others backs’ when necessary!

Deputies were usually promoted from the hewers , that is from the winners of coal.By their nature they were trusted and respected. They were required to write reports and keep the Overman aware of the conditions in the mine. Part of their role was to remove redundant props and that made it one of the most dangerous jobs in the pit because of the danger of roof collapse. A significant number of deputies were accidentally killed over the years.

Hewers were brave and super energetic coal producers – often over 21 years old. They dug the coal out and filled it into the coal tubs  provided by what was called the ‘putter’. For the sake of brevity I am not going to descibe developments in mechanized coal getting – such as shearers etc.

Some of the workers around the colliery yard included masons, fitters, joiners, painters, tub menders, saddlers, farriers and electricians.

It was a very important industry and  the jewel in the crown that made the Industrial Revolution possible. Without coal miners the young ones of today would very probably not be part of an advanced nation. Even people on welfare benefits are wealthy compared to the vast majority of humans on this planet of ours and much of that is surely down to the heritage of coal  and  the raw courage of the miners.

WB