A little local and family history

In 1945, my father, Frederick Cecil Radford, was a bricklayer employed by Williamthorpe Colliery, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire. At the same time, I was a clerk at Wingerworth open cast coalmine. My father was working over 1000 feet underground on two seams of coal – the Deep Hard and the Piper. Four miles away I could walk on the same two seams of coal in the open cast pit about 25 feet down from the surface. My maternal family history shows how many of my ancestors were involved in coal mining in one way or another. My great-great grandfather John Naylor was a collier in Pinxton. His son, my great-grandfather, also a John Naylor, was a collier in Somercotes. According to my research their wives came from families associated with coal mining as well.

By 1881, my great-grandfather, John Naylor, was an under-viewer (manager) at Cotes Park # 1 & 2 mines in Alfreton, Derbyshire. This title meant that he was in charge of whatever went on underground in the mine. He assigned the miners to a particular gallery or coalface and supervised the blasting. He was responsible for getting the miners out if there was an accident or fire. We found his occupation on the Marriage Certificate of his third son Edwin. Edwin Naylor was my grandfather. When Edwin was married in 1885, his occupation was listed as an Engine driver at Cotes Park. My mother (Coral Esme Naylor) always said that he had been a Winding Engine Driver but he was classified as a colliery clerk at a coalmine according to the 1901 Census. As far as I know he never went underground. He moved to Station Road, Ilkeston, sometime before my mother was born in 1898, and worked at Manners Colliery. The family moved to Wilmot Street later on and that is the house I remember. My mother used to take us visiting our grandparents when we lived close to Ilkeston. My grandfather Edwin loved woodworking. He made a black board and easel for me at Christmas time. I was about five years old at the time. My sister, Margaret used it too when she was little.

Most mining families would have more than one person working in the mine. Fathers, uncles and sons would work together. Working underground in a coal mine was relatively well paid compared with other jobs but conditions were very hard. The Factory Act of 1833 restricted the working hours and age of women and children going underground. After 1842 women and children under 10 years old were banned from working underground altogether. But the major problem of poor conditions remained for the older boys and men who worked in the industry. Although technological revolution brought wealth to industrialists, it brought poverty to the working classes that were forced to work in appalling conditions. My parents were determined that I would not end up working in a mine and so they encouraged me to stay in school.

I can remember the pitheads with their twin wheels in all sorts of combinations, together with the waste tips, dominating the skylines in the colliery districts. The exhaust noise from the steam driven winding engines could be heard all over the area. The steam hooters marked the changeover of the shifts and were a part of everyday life. Each shift was eight hours starting at 6:00 a.m. The hooters were used as air raid sirens in the Second World War and also were used to notify the villages when there was a mine disaster.

In the mining villages the Miner’s Welfare and the Pubs were the centre of Village life. The Miners’ Welfare Fund was established in 1921. In 1926, the Mining Industry Act declared that 1 pence for every ton of coal sold should be given to the Welfare Fund. It was then that a national scheme was started to build pithead baths. They also provided canteens, educational establishments, recreation grounds, institutes and halls.

In early years many of the collieries did not have pithead baths and the miners returned home as black as the ace of spades. The miners’ houses did not have bathing facilities. So the miner had to wash in a tub in front of the kitchen fire. Because of the lack of privacy he would wash down as far as possible and up as far as possible. When the wife and children were out or away then he managed to wash “possible”.

Holidays ...

I remember one year, when I was eight years old, the Miners’ Welfare, in Pleasley, held a Christmas Dress-up Contest for the children. It was decided that I would be Dick Whittington. My mother made me a dashing cloak out of a piece of marine blue cloth with a big stand-up collar. My father fashioned a tri-corner hat out of an old hat belonging to my Mom and used cardboard to make the stiff turned up brim. I wore black Wellington boots. The crowning touch was the kitten that perched on my shoulder. How did they get the kitten to stay? They rubbed my ear and my cheek with fish skin to keep the kitten interested. Needless to say I won first prize – a flashlight. My father was so pleased with my success that the following night he took me to the next village’s children’s dress-up contest held at a church. I won again and the prize was another flashlight!

The Derbyshire Miner’s Association had a convalescent home for years at Skegness and then in the summer of 1939, opened a Holiday Camp for Miners and their families. It was opened in the second year that Miners were able to enjoy a full week’s holiday with pay.

My family only went to this Skegness camp once, in August 1939. It was the first year that the camp opened. Special trains were arranged to take the families to Skegness and return. The camp was similar to a Billy Butlin Camp. Very organized with big communal Mess Halls. The parents were housed together in chalets and the children over the age of four or five were placed two to a room. I was paired with a boy I had never met before. My eldest sister, Pauline was paired with a girl called Mavis, they became such good friends that the friendship endured over the years until Mavis passed away in England in 1999. The parents could participate in dances, competitions and whist drives. I remember the big playgrounds but mostly the beach where we spent the day building our castles, moats and rivers and paddling in the cold North Sea.

Continued in column 2...

... And war

I can remember that on the return train I heard people talking about possible war. They were right as World War ll started in September 1939. The Skegness camp was taken over by the Royal Navy and became HMS Port Arthur.

In the villages, houses were allocated to the miner by the mine that employed him. The kitchen was the heart of the mining family’s home. Meals were prepared, cooked and eaten there. Coal fires heated the houses. But as a coal allowance was part of the miner’s wages the families never went cold. The allowance was one ton per month in the winter months and in summer it was one ton every five weeks. Some of the houses had gardens and some did not. Many of the miners had allotments where they supplemented their diets with homegrown vegetables.

I lived in Pleasley from 1935-39, with my parents. A typical house in a mining village would be “two up and two down”. But the house in Pleasley had a kitchen, dining and front room. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom that did not include a toilet. The toilet was outside the back door. The bedrooms were not heated so we went to bed cuddling pottery hot water bottles to keep us warm and there was the inevitable “potty” under the bed. We had electricity because the colliery did not have a gas works. Coal deliveries were made on the road in front of the house and once a month, we had the job of moving the pile to the coal shed at the back of the house. This was done with a wheelbarrow and buckets. We could look up the hill from the front of the house and see Pleasley Colliery where my father worked.

Many a winter evening, my sister Pauline and I spent sitting in front of the fire with my Mother (Coral Esme Naylor) and helped to make rag rugs from a piece of hessian (sacking) and old clothes cut into strips. A sharpened clothes peg was used to push the material through the backing. We laid the finished rugs by the sides of our beds or in front of the fire.

When we moved to Holmewood, near Chesterfield, in September 1939, we only had a washhouse across the little backyard with a “copper” for heating the water and doing the laundry and a big tin bath for bathing. The houses were illuminated by coal gas. The toilet was outside. The back windows looked out over Hardwick Colliery. My father was then working for Williamthorpe Colliery that was owned by Hardwick Colliery. At this time of my life I was in Grammar School in Chesterfield and Pauline was in Secondary School in Clay Cross. We had so much homework that we had no time for making rag rugs.

Ponies worked underground pulling the tubs of coal and carrying working materials to the coalface. They had a hard life but were protected by special laws particularly after 1911. I used to see the ponies in the summer time when they were put out to pasture while the miners were on holiday. The mines had underground stables, stable boys and blacksmiths. In complete darkness, the ponies could find their way to and from the coal- face. Pit ponies won prizes at shows and set a high standard for other working horses. In 1930, there were 32,000 pit ponies underground. They were gradually phased out as the mines became more mechanized.

In October 1945, I was called up and went into the British Army. During the terrible winter of 1946/47, a detachment from the School of Military Engineering was sent to Derbyshire to assist in clearing the snow and getting food and water through to stranded residents. There were about twenty soldiers (including myself) and five bulldozers. I was very glad of my knowledge of the roads and the district. At one point our senior officer was looking for somewhere where the troops could shower as we were billeted in an old camp with no facilities. I knew just the place, Williamthorpe Colliery, near Holmewood, where they had recently installed pithead showers. I knew the Manager, Mr. Booth. I had met Mr. Booth when he and my father were in the Home Guard. I was in the Army Cadets and we often joined in the Home Guard exercises. I was able to go to the mine and ask Mr. Booth if the troops could use the pithead showers. He was surprised to see me and was only too willing to meet our Commanding Officer and to welcome the soldiers. I got a lot of credit for solving the problem of cleanliness for the troops. Each soldier was given a big white fluffy towel to dry off and allowed to keep the towel. I remember enjoying that towel for a long time afterwards because they were rationed and hard to buy.

This was my last contact with collieries as on my discharge from the British Army I worked for the Minister of Agriculture & Fisheries and then Cripps Motors of Nottingham until 1952 when I migrated to Australia as an instructor in the Australian Army. I never lived in England again after that date.

References

1. Old Ordnance Survey Maps: Derby, Derwent & Erewash (1895) and Chesterfield, Mansfield & Matlock (1889) "The Godfrey Edition": Alan Godfrey Maps
2. North Derbyshire Collieries on old picture postcards: Yesterday's Derbyshire Series No.1.: Alan Bower: Reflections of a Bygone Age 1993

Page added: February 10th 2007
Last updated: April 7th 2012

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