Northumberland farming history - The hirings

By Clive Dalton

The days of the horseman have long gone

When we were young ‘daft laddies’ on farms in the North Tyne and Rede valley, the ‘old codgers’ who kept a close eye on us (so we did 'nowt daft') would often tell stories about ‘the hirings’, or the ritual of farmers hiring staff in their days around the13th of May (called ‘the term’) and then in 13 November each year.  These days were also called the ‘flitting days’ when folk moved from job to job.

It certainly seemed like a well-run ritual where farm workers with different skills would stand around in Bellingham village waiting to be approached with an offer for work. There was no need for a printed CV and most prospective employers would know their previous employer if they were local.

It seemed to be much more convenient than advertising in the newspapers, which many folk on 'outbye' farms would not have got in any case.

There was an annual  hiring at Alwinton Show which is still held in the first weeks of October.  It would be a great opportunity to recruit new labour when so many farm folk were together.  As my old North Tyne mate Clive Davidson says - Imagine having a few drinks at the show, seeing the industrial tent and a few games of quoits, then trekking to some farm at the top of the Couqet knowing only too well that you would see precious little daylight or home comforts before you heard the first cookoo next spring!  Hopefully the farm or the nearby one would would have hired a bonny servant lass that could have helped you through the winter.

Different jobs

Shepherds wore a bit of wool in their lapel, and on many farms they and their demands had the top status, in the eyes of the boss.  Maybe this was because sheep were the main enterprise on most farms, and certainly on the hill farms where the sheep were ‘hefted’ and were never moved off that farm.  You took the sheep over with the farm.

Horsemen work a leather lace in their lapels but there was no mention of how general workers (referred to as loose men) identified themselves.

Job descriptions

Hind
This was the 'general hand' or the farm who had the skills to do all the jobs required.

Horseman
Hired to look after the horses on the farm and do all the work that required horse power.

·      Lambing man.  Hired just for the lambing starting in March on an ‘inbye’ flock, finishing in time to do a ‘hill lambing’ starting in April.  There was no indoor early lambing in those early days which can now start in February.

·      Hay man.  Hired mainly to help with hay followed by corn harvest.  Before any hay was cut there would be work helping the general farm hind to hoe turnips and pull weeds in any other arable crop like potatoes. But the main work was to harvest the hay and corn (oats and barley).  An ability to build outside stacks and thatch them was an essential skill needed.  This work ended before the November term and could include helping with threshing some of the stacked corn, and maybe helping lifting the potatoes in October.

·      Byreman or cowman.  Hired in November for when cattle came indoors for winter.  It would include cutting kale left growing in the field, and feeding hay from the hayshed or stack outside and carried to the housed stock.  Cleaning ('muckin oot') byres, hemmels and loose boxes was a big part of the job and dealing the product into middens at various places as the muck increased over winter.  Spreading it on hay fields was a part of this responsibility – which meant horse and cart work before tractors and mechanical muck spreaders arrived in the 1950s.

 Employment conditions

There was certainly no Farm Workers’ Union to specify working conditions or wages, and even in later decades, farm workers were never keen to join unions like in other industries.  So there would be no written contract listing any conditions of employment.

It would be a case of bargaining between both parties, if either was in a bargaining position!  Farm workers were noted for their regular moving from farm to farm, as there was (and still is today) plenty of reasons why things don’t work out between parties.  One of the main ones is that workers live with or beside their employers and so do their families where problems often arise with the many people involved.

I remember Harry Thompson who drove a wagon for Hugh Thompson in Bellingham saying that he had shifted one farm worker every year for so many years, that he knew where every box went on the deck of this wagon.

It was only from the 1940s that road transport was available to move people and for decades before that it would be horse and cart moving.

The bargaining would have been interesting to hear.  The accommodation offered for farm laddies was often in the hay loft above the stable where the horses would have provided so element of warmth, along with aromas.  Other farm lads would have lived in the house with the farmer.

There was often a dedicated ‘shepherd’s cottage’ on a farm and a pair of cottages on larger farms for permanent staff such as the hinds.  Seasonal workers often lodged with these staff or in a shed or ‘bothie’.

Enticements by employers to get staff to stay on would be very limited.  My father who worked on a farm on the Chesters estate at Humshaugh told the tale of the boss offering the horseman a set of bright hames for the horse’s collar if he stayed on.  The standard ones were unpolished rusty metal.

A friend I worked for during weekends and school holidays told me that when he left school at 14 and went for a farm job, one of the questions he was asked was whether he ate much!

Women workers

I can’t remember hearing that women like ‘servant lasses’ or housekeepers were hired like the men, and would be employed  more by word of mouth or recommended by friends and relatives.  But any shepherdesses or 'landgirls' (who would be single) would presumably be hired like men.  There would be no specialist dairy maids on North Tyne farms as there would only be at most a couple of cows on each farm.

Payment

Wages were never paid weekly.  Board and lodging would be provided and any cottages would be rent-free.  Wages would be paid on a monthly basis at best, but more likely at the end of the job. There would be no advance payment unless the worker came with no money to buy basic essentials like clothes or boots which were very expensive. Even in my Daft Laddie days, hobnail boots were a week’s wages.

The wages at best would be a few shillings per week, and we think not as high as five shillings.  Out of this the worker would have to buy his tobacco as most smoked a pipe, and any liquid refreshment when they did get to the nearest pub.  There would be little chance of saving.

There were many tales of farm workers taking off to town at the end of their time and blowing large parts of their wages in the nearest pub.

There would certainly be no signed contract - the best would be a hand shake and maybe a drink at the bar of the Railway hotel, Black Bull or Rose and Crown in the village.

Clive Davison tells this story.

I remember being told of one old lag that after getting his pay and going to the pub. Whiskey was apparently sold in 3-gill (852ml) bottles but not with a screw cap and must have been the ones where you needed a bottle opener. This old boy didn't go in for any finesse and didn’t have time to waste. So he knocked the top off on a stone 'cape' on the wall, and got stuck in. The broken edges cut his mouth and lips and blood poured down his chin. After finishing that he no doubt went back to be hired again! 

Northumbrian verse. Pills for All Ills

 

By Donald Clegg

Don entered this verse in the Morpeth competition for dialect poetry - and won the cup for a second year along with other awards.

Don Clegg with his cup and other wards for Northumbrian dialect verse

 Aa went to the doctor’s on Monda, Aa thowt Aa was gettin’ the flu,

Aa was gannin’ cowld an’ hot, an’ coffin’ a lot. When Aa got there he says, ‘How de do’?

He says, ‘If yo’re ill Aa’ll give ye a pill’. So he did. Aa said ‘Thanks’. It was BLUE.

Aa went to the doctor’s on Tuesda. Aa hev a job gettin’ about,

It might be rheumatics or an ingrown toenail, or corns, or summat, or gout’,

When Aa got to the car it was rainin’, so Aa thowt Aa’d tek me umbrella.

Doc says, ‘By, ye look ill, Aa’d bettor give ye a pill’.  An’ he did. Aa said,’Thanks’. It was YELLA.

Aa went to the doctor’s on Wensda, Aa hed sic an ache in me arm.

It’s a mystery to me, but Aa think it must be, years ago, muckin’ oot on the farm,

It was the same canny doctor. He says, ‘Nuw just let’s hev a wee think’

Aa’ll give ye a pill, then ye’ll not feel ill.” So he did. Aa said, ‘Thanks’. It was PINK

Aa went to the doctor’s on Thorsda. Me heed was achin’ and sare

Aa’d been on the pop (didn’t know when to stop). Aa’ve nivvor felt like it afore,

The doc wasn’t that sympathetic. He asked, If Aa’d  been on the town,

Yo’re boond to feel ill, but Aa’ll give ye a pill.  An’ he did. Aa said, ‘Thanks’. It was BROWN.

Aa went to the doctor’s on Frida. Me wattor works aal of a twist

Aa’d not been to the loo for a day or two -Aa’d give owt to gan oot and git p.........d (put right).

‘By heck’! says the doc. ‘Ye must hev some kind o’block, it’s the warst Aa’ve seen aal this summer’.

‘But if yo’re feelin’ see ill, Aa’ll not give ye a pill, here’s a note for Jack Nixon, the plumber’.

Aa was back at the doctor’s on Satdy. He was theor as Aa went through the door

He says, ‘Hello, me good man, you divn’t look vary grand. Let me think - have I seen you before’?

‘Aa just think ye have’, was me sarky reply. ‘Aal this med’cin ye think such a boon’,

‘Aa’ve had that mony pills, Aa’m fed up to the gills, an’ rattle when Aa jump up and doon’.

But noo Aa’m aal sorted and fit as a lop. Ivvry mornin’ Aa gan for a run

Aa play footbaal, gan bikin’ an’ swimmin’ and such so Aam hevin’ nee end of gud fun,

So here’s to the doctors that keep us alive an’ save us from aal kinds of stress.

Cos Aa sometimes fear, Aa just wadn’t be here, if it warn’t for the NHS.

But as we get owlder and faalin’ apart, we suffer from aal sorts of ills

So in case wor good doctor’s not able to come, Aa’ve still got me box full of pills.

Donald Clegg (Aad Wattie)

Northumberland traditions: My old Northumbrian fiddle.

By Clive Dalton

Oh if he'd only had lessons!

 Ladies and Gentlemen - Let’s have a few waltzes and reels

Some time in the 1950s through old family friends, Jack and Eva Wanlass from Wark,  I met Walter Hymers of West Woodburn.  Jack and Eva must have told Walter that I was interested in fiddles and Northumbrian music.

Being a ‘daft laddie’ on farms up the North Tyne in those days, it was inevitable that you knew old folk who played the fiddle, especially in their younger days for their own entertainment and for the local dances.  Examples of old country fiddlers I knew were Dan Wood from the Steele, Matt Wood from the Reenes, Mick Hall from Woodburn and John Armstrong of Elsdon.  They would never have had music lessons – they all just played by ear and learned tunes from other fiddlers.

In those days, folk didn’t need much of an excuse to sweep the granary floor or open up the church or village hall on a Saturday night – and get the local fiddler to play a few waltzes and reels.  There would be an old piano in most halls (mostly out of tune) and somebody locally would have a melodeon or accordion, or just a mouth organ.  The place would soon be rocking. The resident rats and mice would be driven deep inside the two-foot-thick stone walls of these old buildings.

After returning from the WW1, my father regularly played his mouth organ for Saturday night dances in the granary for the staff at Chesters, Humshaugh where mother was head housemaid.  Dad was the band!

The shepherd’s fiddle

In a typical shepherd’s cottage you’d find a range of walking sticks in a rack between the beams in the kitchen, and an old fiddle in its battered case on top of the ‘press’.  You may even find one hung with the bow on a hook on the wall.

The press was a traditional big cupboard with two large doors in the top half that opened out to reveal the crockery, and drawers in the bottom half.  There were two drawers in the top layer for the cutlery, and two more full-length drawers below that for tablecloths and linen.  These large drawers were also handy for when the bairn was born as one (kept open!) made a safe refuge for a few weeks till the cot was sorted.

Howay Jack man

So a common cry on a many a winter’s night was - 'Howay Jack man - git the fiddle doon off the top o' the press an give us a bit tune'.  This was usually met by –‘No, No man – Aa hevn’t played for years – me fingors is not supple any mare’ – and other excuses. 

A few wee drams seemed to loosen up the fingers, as before long the fiddle was ‘browt doon’ and the old case opened up to reveal usually a filthy old fiddle with the top covered in rosin from the bow, and what appeared to be accumulated ‘baccy juice’ from a pipe being smoked or tobacco being chewed while playing.  The old strings were mainly gut and not steele. Once started, it was often a hard job to get the player stopped for supper or to go to bed!

Another fiddle resting place in a farm house was on top of the ‘des bed’, usually parked in the kitchen in the recess beside the fire. This was a large cupboard with two doors, which held a full sized double bed which opened up on to the kitchen floor when needed.  All the bedding was stored in there too.

Jimmy Shand and his band

In my day, Jimmy Shand and other Scottish dance bands like Angus Fitchett were the ‘gold standard’ and they paid fairly regular visits south across the Border to villages in the Coquet, Rede and Tyne valleys.  Our Bellingham dances in the Town Hall were looked forward to for weeks. 

It was a serious affair with the men in suites the lassies in fancy ball dresses.  The Town Hall soon heated up as it seemed impossible to turn off the boilers, which blew a warm gale up through the grill in the floor below the balcony.  So it didn’t take many reels or rants to bring out the sweat, and swamp the fancy perfume the lassies started off with which we farm lads couldn’t smell in any case!

The tickets were expensive for us village lads – a few pounds, but it was worth every saved-up penny to see and hear these masters of music and metronomic rhythm.  The highlight of highlights for me was when the fiddler in Shand’s band agreed to play a solo.  His playing took your breath away, and I’d go home swearing that I’d never touch the fiddle again. His fingers hit places on the fiddle that I never knew existed.

Unfortunately fancy fiddles were too expensive, and in any case there was nobody in Bellingham to give lessons, There would have been somebody in Hexham but expecting my parents to pay out more money on top of school fees was not on.  

 Collecting records

78 rpm record - easily broken and scratched

Jimmy Shand’s music was readily available on the large 78 rpm gramophone records, and then on the 48rpm vinyl records.  When a new one came out, it was a must-purchase for me from Windows in the Arcade in Newcastle which I passed every day coming from school to the Central Station, at the same time, looking at the violins in the display window with great envy and frustration as I couldn't really play properly.

The 45 rpm vinyl records

The family Minster gramophone (c 1920s)

The gramophone

My parents had a Minster gramophone which they must have bought in the early days of their marriage in the 1920s, and it was always a revered bit of furniture kept in the front room after we moved to a Council House in Bellingham that had one.

The major sin was to wind it up to tight and break the spring and not to change the needle after 4-5 records.  And of course - not to drop the brittle record and return them to their paper sleeves to stop scratching the surface.

You could only play one record at a time. The records were stored on the shelf below the loudspeaker.

Lid open showing container for used needles and velvet pad to clean record before playing

A revered bit of furniture.  Note the windup handle at the side.

Radiogram

In the 1950s a combined radio and gramophone became the high fashion bit of furniture and were very expensive.  The technology had advanced so you could stack about 10 records above the turntable and each would be played in turn.

Record player
In the 1950s a record player came on  the market made by PYE.  One had a black decorated case and was called the 'PYE black box'.  Before we were married in 1959 we purchased one with a mahogany case for about twenty pounds sterling - expensive but it was a treasured possession to play our many old and recent records - 10 at a time.  It now resides in the Hamilton City Museum of Art and History.

I used to put a Shand's record on and try to accompany him on my fiddle.  He would not have been impressed!

PYE record player 1959

Meeting Walter Hymers

I remember cycling across to see Walter and is wife at West Woodburn and coming away with a fiddle that had come apart at the back – the top had parted from the sides and in the process, the sound post had fallen out and I can’t remember how I managed to get it back into place as you needed a special tool to stick into it and fit it under the bridge to take the maximum strain of the E string.

Those were the days before fancy modern glues and all you could get was ‘animal glue’ with its distinctive smell.  It came in small tins, which was an advance from the slabs of it you could buy and heated the tin in a small pan on the stove or fire until it was soft.  I cramped the top on the old fiddle and proudly took it back to Walter.

 I can’t remember now whether it was then or some time later that Walter made the generous offer of giving me that fiddle in it’s fiddle-shaped case vinyl-covered case. He provided no information on the history of his fiddle.

I brought it to New Zealand and played it for many years before giving it to my son in Melbourne where he took it to a violin specialist to find out that it was much more valuable that I had ever imagined.  It got an expert clean and a new aluminium bomb-proof case to protect it from damage.

Walter Hymers

Information from Clive Hymers (Walter’s son)

Walter Armstrong Hymers was born on 11 September 1903 at Blutcher on the western fringes of Newcastle upon Tyne in County Durham.  He started school at Blutcher and then his family moved to Plashetts when Walter was 7 which required him to get an ‘educational transfer’ to satisfy the bureaucracy of the day.

Walter left school at age 14 and went to work for the Forestry Commission which in 1917 was still war time and the North Tyne hills were in the early stages of being developed into one of the largest man-made forests in Britain.

Walter was a keen sportsman and played in local football teams – sometimes in more than one!  After his playing days, he was a very keen supporter of Woodburn AFC which competed with teams in the North Tyne and Rede valleys.

He then got a job just over the border in Scotland at the Hawick Brick Works driving a steam Foden.  From there he came back to Northumberland to work  at Swinburne quarry and then at Blaxter quarry as a shot firer, and in the process of his travels he also lived at Falstone and finally at West Woodburn.

In 1935 Walter married Eleanor Scott from West Woodburn and they had four children – Maureen (born 1942), Shirley (born 1944), Clive (born 1947) and Robin (born 1954).

During the WW11 Walter got a job looking after German POWs at Otterburn camp where they were they were happy to admit that it was much safer in confinement that fighting.  Walter had a motorbike and sidecar and it wasn’t unknown for him to land home with a German young lad for Sunday lunch. Many of the prisoners were skilled craftsmen and made many items in wood as presents for the Hymers family.

Like many other young folk in those days, Walter picked up playing the fiddle by ear and played in some local groups – none of them big enough to be names as a band.  It was a case of gathering whoever was available at the time to play at a function, so numbers varied a lot.

Walter like many other local men was a keen gardener and exhibited at local Leek and Horticultural Shows.  Walter retired in 1963 after a heart attack and died in October 1968 aged 65.

The fiddle's current home
I gave the fiddle to my son in Melbourne for safe keeping and he took it a renowned violin expert to restring it and give it a spring clean.  The expert considered it to be a very good quality instrument.
There was no label on the inside and Walter never told me anything of it's history.  Walter would  have had it for 50 years at least and I have had it for a similar period.

My son Nigel and the Melbourne violin expert - and the old Hymers fiddle

The fiddle safe in its current  home in Melbourne Australia - a long way from West Woodburn.

 

Northumberland coal mining history - Hareshaw pit

Clive Dalton

Geology of Northern England
 

The Northumbrian fells with shallow coal seams underneath.  Photo of Sandy Syke formerly shepherd's cottage near Hareshaw and now a summer cottage for rent. Photo by Donald Clegg.

 The geology of Northern England shows the ‘coal measures’ mainly north of the ‘Tyne gap’, which is the boundary separating Northumberland and the Cheviot hills to the north, from county Durham and the Pennines to the south.  The river Tyne flows through the gap before it splits into the North and South Tyne at Hexham.

The coal measures are tilted, so are miles deep under the North Sea off the coast of Northumberland, and become shallower as they go west towards the Scottish Border. In the 1950s, the coal seams at Heddon-on-the-Wall were shallow enough to make open cast mining a viable option, after which the land was fully restored to even better and more level farm land.

Drift mining

The remains of roadway into the pit workings. Photo by Donald Clegg.

The active pit workings.  Photograph by kind permission of the Heritage Centre at Bellingham.  Collier collection.  A Collier collection photo.  The row of stone cottages is in the mid distance - clearly burning pit coal.

Up into the Border hills of the North Tyne and Rede valleys, the coal in places was so shallow that it was mined commercially from ‘drifts’ which were cut into the sides of hills.  In some places you could even see coal deposits showing on the sides of burns (streams) where they had been exposed after flood erosion.

In the 1950s the three mines listed below were the main ones in the North Tyne and Rede areas, and were not nationalised under the National Coal Board (NCB).  

Table below from Wikipedia. 

Mine	Owner	Men underground	Men above  ground	Coal type
Elsdon	Elsdon Coal Co Ltd	12		Steam
Hareshaw	J Armstrong and Son	11	3	Steam Household
Plashetts	W.A Nixon	9	4	Steam

Small pits
There were also small drift mines owned by private individuals who sold coal locally.  There was one at Shilburnhaugh near Falstone, the Comb near Tarset, at Goatstones up the Wark's burn, and even a one-man pit worked by a local character called Ned Jacobson at Hesleyside near Bellingham.  Ned was noted for his occasional trips to Bellingham to slake his thirst, and then his failure to make it home again, finding overnight accommodation under the thorn hedge across the Tyne bridge beside the show field .

Hareshaw pit - history

The road up to Hareshaw Head farm on the horizon on the way to Otterburn. 
 Photo by Donald Clegg

The pit was on the right of the road in the above photo, and the miners' cottages and the village hall were on the left. In the far left of the photo is a brick structure which was part of the garage for the coal delivery wagons. It was also where the petrol pump was kept - locked with only one person with they key, but apparently according to Jim Bell, this was not a foolproof way of operating the handle of the pump which he found out in recent years from the clever thief!

There were three pits at Hareshaw after coal was found in the late 1800s.  The first pit was worked conventionally from a vertical shaft which was closed due to flooding.  The pit ponies were drowned in the disaster. 

The other two later mines were worked from drifts. The final commercial workings only went into the hill  a few miles, but they connected to the earlier drift workings which went up to the hill called 'The Beacon', over which the byroad ran over the fell to Woodburn.

 Out on the fell there were deep holes dug for ventilation of the shafts, and fenced off to keep livestock and people out.  But David Armstrong (son of the manager Bartram Armstrong) says it was a great challenge for the Hareshaw kids (him included) to sneak up on to the fell and climb the protective fence and look down into the scary depths of the mine and listen for movement.





Photo shows the winding gear for the shaft on the first pit.  Men's names in photo unknown.  Photo by kind permission of the Heritage Centre at Bellingham.

Photo shows winding gear and tubs coming from the shaft on their way to the screens. Photo by kind permission of the Heritage Centre at Bellingham

Jim Bell
 
Jim started working at Hareshaw pit aged 14 when he left the Reed's Church of England school in Bellingham.  His family lived in one of the stone cottages at Hareshaw. 

Jim worked at the pit for two years before doing  two years compulsory military service after which he returned to the pit as one of the wagon drivers until it closed around 1952. 

Jim remembers the two wagons were an Albion (registration JR 74) and a Commer.  He then drove for many years for Hugh Thompson in Bellingham who ran a general transport business.

Photo of Jim Bell by kind permission of David Walmsley, the Heritage Centre at Bellingham.


 Hareshaw pit documents
Many of the documents from the pit when it closed in the early 1950s were deposited in the  Heritage Centre at Bellingham by Jim and the late Dorothy Bell who were foundation members of the Museum.  This covers detailed description of the mine and what it was like to work in it; living at Hareshaw and facets of local life; details of the families who lived there; the school and community hall; and a few reminiscences, especially from Arthur Pick who worked there for ten years

Hareshaw coal
Hareshaw pit produced Anthracite and Phurnacite (which was dust that was pressed into eggs), and they used to buy in coke to sell which was produced at the Blaydon coke ovens on Tyneside. The cost of Hareshaw coal in the 1950s Jim Bell remembers was two shillings and seven pence a hundredweight bag (2/7d per cwt).

Hareshaw pit – staff

Jim Bell has provided an extensive list from memory of men employed at the pit over a number of years, according to their duties.

John Riddel (Blakelaw farm), Edward Armstrong, Benson Coulson, Edward Milburn.
The role of these men is not recorded.  They were maybe business Directors.

Photo by kind permission of the Heritage Centre at Bellingham.

Owner and manager of last pit: Bartram (Barty) Armstrong. Son of the original Armstrong founders.

Deputies (men who were responsible for work and safety underground)
Jack Hutton (also Hewer)
Arthur Pick (also Hewer with highest production and earnings)

Hewers (coal diggers)
Bob (Shafty) Armstrong
George Bell
Harry Young
Billy Dodd
Adam Armstrong
Teddy Hay
Tommy Scott
Douglas Young
Binner Wright
Ossie Young
Chic Brown
Josey Dodd
Jackie Stevenson (killed in pit accident)

Putters (men who filled the tubs after the hewers)
Ken Pick
Harry Wilson
Dennis Benson
Thomas Armstrong
Tommy (Gally) Storey

Pony drivers (men who drove the 4 Welsh ponies pulling the tubs)
Jacky Brown
Harry Armstrong
Norman Armstrong
Harry Wilson
Jeff Little
Matt Hall (in charge of ponies and horses on Hareshaw Head farm)

Wagon Delivery Drivers
Tot Dixon
Albert Dodd ( Albion wagon  JR 74)
Jim Bell (truck (Albion wagon JR 74)
Bill Dodd
Bill Richardson
John Armstrong
John McLennan

Banksman (men who worked tipping the coal from the tubs on to the screens for grading)
Jack Hutton
Jack Hutton
Tommy Little

Others. 
Jack Mason
Edward Elliott (Joiner)
James Ridley
? Hymas 

Office clerk (responsible for office work and wages)
Mary Potts

Photos of staff

Pit employees of various ranks judging by their dress - names not recorded. This looks like the bank where the tubs were emptied. Photo by kind permission of the Heritage Centre at Bellingham.  Date unknown - c early 1900s?

1916.  The first four from the left in the photograph are William Dodd, Edward Elliott, Jack Hutton and James Ridley.  Jack Mason is at the right-end.  

Note the shorts worn by the men underground due to the heat.  Their thick woollen socks were home knit by their wives from wool purchased from Otterburn mill.   Photo by kind permission of the Heritage Centre at Bellingham. This photo was printed as a post card, presumably for sale to send to friends.

Getting to work
Very few miners had their own transport which at best was a motorbike.  Others got to work by pushbike or were collected by the coal wagon if it had been kept overnight in Bellingham.  On many occasions some like Tommy Little would walk to work over the fells past Blakelaw farm, Callahues crags and Hareshaw House farms to the pit.

Pit baths
There were none!  Pitmen went home and bathed when they got home in the long bath in front of the fire.  A highlight for us Bellingham Noble Street kids was  to sneak along and watch Tommy Little get bathed after arriving home from the pit. 

We knew every detail of the ritual. Ella would take the long tin bath off the nail on the wall at the back door and put it in front of the fire. She would then fill it with cold water kept in buckets in the pantry as there was only one tap in the street for all ten houses to share. 

Tommy would arrive and take his outer pit clothes off sitting on a cracket (small stool - see my blog on 'the Geordie cracket') as he was not allowed to sit on a chair with all the coal dust. Ella would then use a large enamel jug to lift hot water from the 'set pot' on the left side of the grate (the oven was on the right) and heat the bath water up to a good warm temperature.

Tommy would  then remove his underclothes and hop into the bath taking care to cover his vital parts so we kids couldn't see, and then wet and soap his head and body.  The water only came up to below his navel so there was no risk of an overflow onto the fireside mat. When finished Ella took the jug and poured warm water over Tommy's head down over this upper body.  He was 'home and hosed' and climbed out of the bath to get changed.  When dressed Tommy and Ella carried the bath plus dirty water and tipped it into the drain that ran along our back lane into the main sink by the tap. Where this went nobody knew!

There was also a 'hip bath' that some folk had with high back and front and low sides so you sat with legs outside the bath and only your lower body in water.

Pit accidents
Jackie Stevenson of Bellingham was the only person to be killed in Hareshaw pit.  It is reported that the accident occurred because he failed to follow safe practice under direction of Deputy Arthur Pick when propping the roof, and a stone fell and hit him on the head.

Customer service

When householders wanted coal, they didn’t contact the pit to order it directly by phone or letter, as there were few coin phone boxes around and local folk were not phone users.  And there was no central office or shop in Bellingham village for example, which took orders for coal. 

Coal wagon delivery

One of the wagons to be used for coal delivery in the Bellingham area probably in the early 1900s.  Photo by kind permission of Heritage Centre Bellingham.  The business is in the names of J and EM (Joseph and Edward) Armstrong.

The Hareshaw marketing system was simple and worked well where the coal delivery wagon made a regular delivery round and folk took what you wanted.  The delivery round must have been shorter in winter when more coal would be burned than in summer, and this must have been taken into account at the pit.

The coal delivery men were very skilled and had an intimate knowledge of everyone’s coal houses, to carry the one hundredweight (112 pounds) bags on their shoulders from the wagon, and dump it without damage to property and minimal dust to annoy the householder.  Householders then paid cash, which went into the wagon driver’s strong leather bag.  I think receipts were provided.

When we lived at Noble Street, my father had made a coal house under the ladder-like stairs in the back kitchen up to the single bedroom, and getting a bag of coal in there required great handling skills.  There were many coal houses like this in the terraced houses, but thankfully for the ‘coal men’, the new Council houses that some of us who were lucky to move to had proper dedicated coal houses with a full sized doors, which made emptying the bags easier.

The pitmen got free coal as part of their job, and it was dumped at their back door, which they had to shovel it into their coal houses themselves.  This 'pitmans' coal' was a mix of all the different grades of coal and  was always a very generous load!

Coal quality

Everyone expected to get top quality coal for their money, free from dust and small stones, which could appear in some seams and could not be separated in all the coal.  Stones would not burn so didn’t give out heat and there were cases where they were known to explode under the intense heat of the fire.  They ended up as white powder in the grate after burning.

Blame the wagon driver

It was the wagon drivers who copped the flak from anyone who had experienced problems with their coal – so one of their great skills was an ability to humour irate housewives with promises that things would be perfection in future!

Small coal

You could order ‘small coal’ or ‘slack’ which was coal got broken down into small pieces along with dust during the mining and screening process.  It was cheaper and was used to ‘bank up’ a fire overnight. In many standard ranges there was a shelf at the back of the fire where you could shovel the small coal, and pull it down with the ‘coal rake’, which rested in the fireplace along side the poker and small shovel. My father used to use this small coal in the firebox, which was ideal for banking up the small fire that heated the water pipes in his greenhouse.

Aerial pollution from the great clouds of smoke produced by small coal was not seen as an environmental problem in those days, and it gave a good yield of soot to make up a brew to fertilise the show leeks after the annual visit from Geordie Collings the chimney sweep.

Bulk orders

Farmers collected their coal direct from their nearest pit by horse and cart, and later by tractor and trailer which allowed them to travel from much further afield to the pit.  For many years, on the gate post into the pit was a large old fashioned alarm clock fixed to the gatepost with a notice saying 'No Tick' below it.

Competitors
Sea coal:  This was coal where the seams became exposed by the continual erosion of the tides along the coast north of North Shields.  It was free to be gathered by anyone wanting to make some cash, provided they had a delivery wagon to go to the inland villages and offer their product at a cheaper price.  It's main feature was that being washed by the sea, there was no dust although some customers didn't like burning salt content.

David Armstrong remembers sea coal sellers going around the Hareshaw customers to steal their business and he said that on many occasions, the way they dealt with this competition was to buy the whole wagon load of sea coal off the sellers just to get rid of them.  They were happy enough to get home early!

Railway stations:  The other people who could sell coal were Station Masters. The Bellingham Station Master Donald McKenzie (always ably assisted by his wife Jaques)  had two open topped wagons of coal in a siding from which he bagged it and people came to buy it.  He didn't have a formal delivery service but what the station wagon (driven by Jimmy Wright) got up to would never be questioned.

Hareshaw village

Stone houses at Hareshaw.  Photo by kind permission of the Heritage Centre at Bellingham.

Family tenants were from left to right: - Matt Hall,  John McClennan, Billy Richardson, .Jack Hutton, George Bell.  By the womens' dresses it looks to be early 1900s.

Five of the miners' houses (above photo) were built of stone and four with wood frame with corrugated iron cladding.  Each house had one main room downstairs used as the living room and
kitchen for cooking.  Hot water came from the 'set pot' heated by the fire on the opposite side to the oven.  On the back of the house, under the long sloping roof was the 'back kitchen' where the stairs went up to the single bedroom.  The washing was done in here in a barrel and poss stick before being put through the mangle. There would be a boxed in area for the coal.  The pantry would be the other half of this area with a door on it.  In some houses there was a loft above the pantry for storing odds and ends.

There was no front door, and the only a door for the house went out from this back kitchen.

 The village hall was built with corrugated iron cladding and was the centre for meetings, social activities, and the Presbyterian church services and Sunday school. Matt Hall acted as custodian of the hall, which included a much prized portable organ which kept at home to protect it from the damp.

The village hall was also used as a venue by Bellingham's St Cuthbert's Church of England, and with confirmation classes when preparing children for Communion.  The Rev W.J (Daddy) flower took me there in his blue Standard car to join Kenneth Pick whose family lived in the village.  We were eventually confirmed at Falstone St Peter's Church by the Bishop of Newcastle before a spread of local home baking.

Schooling
There was a school at Hareshaw from 1929-1931 when numbers justified it, and the education authorities approved, but in later years when numbers declined children walked the four miles to Bellingham.  Walking distances was accepted by children in those days and it was not until road transport became common that they were taken by Roddy Thompson's car to and from the Reed's and Council school each day.

Roddy was not only famous for his taxi service, but also for his fish and chip shop where a specialty of his and Mrs Thompson's was a meat ball in batter that he called a 'doodlebug' after the German missiles that were being fires by Hitler from France into Southern England. Thankfully Roddy's were the only ones to land in Bellingham.

There was a terrible tragedy with the school car when one of the Bell children (John) fell out of the moving car and was died in hospital.  Jim Bell, his younger brother, said the family never got over it.  John was about to take his 11+ exam but this was not to be. No action resulted for Roddy's driver.

75 years on
David Armstrong and I sat together from starting at the Reed's Charity School (Church of England)  in Bellingham in 1939 at the start of WW2.  We are a  bit different 75 years later.  Like all kids at the school with one very rare exception, under the tutelage of head master Joe Lumley, we all failed the 11+ exam, as he assumed that our future was in Hareshaw pit, on local farms, stone quarries and the forestry.  He had no expectation or ambition for any of us.

David  always worked around his father's pit and  learned to drive the coal wagons from regular driver Jim Bell.  He helped to deliver coal and remembers doing jobs like taking the four pit pones to Bellingham on a Saturday morning to be shod by 'Burnie' the blacksmith.  

All coal miners were exempt from military service under the 'Bevan Boy' scheme, so David was not called to do his national service at age 18.  Instead he volunteered and was accepted for the RAF where he learned to fly and at age 81, he still has a current pilot's license.

David Armstrong (left) and Clive Dalton

Special Request
If you have any information about Hareshaw pit, I would be delighted to hear from you.  It's very important that information is deposited at the Heritage Centre in Bellingham for future long-term protection and sourcing for family research by those interested.  Also, the many hard working folk and their families who lived and worked at Hareshaw pit deserve to be remembered.