'Umm. Used to go over the bridge and then down. Why, on the right side it was all grass and they were digging there, they used to dig there for coal, you know get little lumps of coal and get them out. There was holes all over the place, where they'd been digging. And the stony heaps, they were down there. Why, they were all afire; if it was windy they used to get the fumes of them.'

Why were they on fire?

'There was coal among them and the heat inside. Get a windy day and it used to flare up. That one at Shotton, it was serious that. Serious! You could smell Shotton long before you got there. Gas. They used to have a gas works there as well and coke ovens. Fishburn was the worst. Phew!'

And there'd be people collecting coal from the lines.

'Yeah, used to go down the line and get the coal, but you used to get chased. There was a copper on at Thornley, he was employed by the colliery, he wasn't a proper policeman and he used to go patrolling

around.

'I remember one day they pushed an old wooden truck out. You know when you go near the Hilly, over the lines? Why there was gates on there and they were all locked up. Right round the pit they were locked. And this day there was some of them working, like Overmen and that that worked at the colliery and they weren't on strike. And they pushed this old wooden truck out and it had like a steel frame and big thick planks of wood. Anyway, they pushed this outside the perimeter and there was dozens of blokes came down with their hammers and axes and within three or four hours there was only the steel frame. There wasn't a bit of bloody wood left! Every spelk, they'd got the bugger off!'

There was no strike pay?

'No, they got nowt, man. Why, we had a big family then.'

And your father helped organise the strike?

'Aye, he was a Union man. He might have been secretary of the union or chairman, I forget now. Aye, they were rough days.'

And that was when his brother Bill decided to got to America?

'I think so. Why, I don't think he was cut out for pit work. Why, she was a school teacher, down there, at the bottom school.

Bill's wife Marcella, who was a teacher at Thornley School.

'Why aye, she had more a week than he did at the pit and they had no family, not then. When they went to America they had seven or eight in the family. When they got married they bought their house up in the Scheme Houses.'

What was her name before she was married?

'Cella O’Donnell.. My aunt Cella.'

What can you remember about your father then?

'He was always out.'

On the picket line?

'No there was nobody--he used to get down to the Welfare. No wait a minute. When was the Welfare built? Aye, about 1930, it was after the strike when they built the Welfare. I was about 10 or 12 years old when they built that. Aye, that was after the strike.'

NEXT: Lessons at St Godric’s RC

‘Aye he was Union man.’ ’The Thornley Miners’ Welfare Institute letter heading reproduced above dates from January 1926. For an enlargement and to read the full letter, click on the image.

The view of Thornley pit above dates from before the Second World War. The Gassy Gutter and Wheatley Hill would be to the left.

The tank engine below was used at Thornley for many years, though loaned to another colliery between 1947 and 1956. For enlargements and fuller captions for both pictures click on the images.