Pits were much more than just the centre of the economy. Whole communities were brought together to work them and the demands of this dirty, dangerous toil created a culture that was unique to the pit villages. Beverley Addy looks back at the history that brought the black diamonds to the surface. *********** Evidence of coal use - and hence mining - dating back over 2,000 years has been found on Hadrian's Wall and in Roman settlements across County Durham and Northumberland. Later, monks mined at Tynemouth, but mostly the churchmen were ardent "sea coalers" collecting lumps from the shores that were washed out of the shallow seams as they ran into the sea.
Author Mike Kirkup.
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Mining in the North-East first flourished in the Durham Coalfield which ran out to the coast. Later it spread to Northumberland. The first pits were bell pits, so named because of their shape that fanned out in a dome underground. To start with the shallow pits were mined by a single man. Later he would have a "marra" who hauled the coal to the surface. It was not until the 17th and 18th centuries that pits as we would recognise them today began to be sunk with pumping mechanisms to clear out the water and ventilation systems. Durham was well placed to serve a burgeoning coal market with access to the rivers Tees, Tyne and Wear. The first pits were built close to the rivers and boats known as keels were used to take the haul to the docks where it was loaded on to ships for the domestic and international markets. As new collieries were sunk further away from the rivers, carts were used to take the coal to the water. By the turn of the 18th Century there was a huge network of wagonways - some of these circumvented the keelmen's business by running direct to drops at the docks. Although the rivers were congested, the keelmen who had formed influential societies rioted at the new Sunderland Drops - where the wagonways unloaded - on March 20, 1815, and it took a party of dragoons from Newcastle to disperse it. One man died. The keelmen were well organised. They even built the Keelmen's Hospital above Newcastle's Quayside. It's still there today and is used as a student residence. When the Industrial Revolution brought in the railways much coal was transported nationally by the steam powered trains. Coal mining at the time was a deadly occupation, with roof falls and explosions. Miners who dragged coal trolleys, harnessed like horses, were usually dead by the age of 40. Miners were tied to the owner by a legally enforceable agreement known as a bond - violation usually ended in a stint in Durham Jail. Inducements were offered such as a bounty of two or three weeks wages and a serving of strong ale. But once the miner's mark was on the paper they were practically slaves until the next binding day. Eventually the miners became organised and collectively refused to sign. But it wasn't until around 50 years ago that miners' conditions really picked up with the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947. Although the intention was to end the rule of the landowning coal baron, Mike Kirkup, Ashington born and bred, who has written about the region's mining history for The People's History series, says many of the landowners' own men were quickly reinstated to the pits because otherwise there would have been no-one to run them - so little had changed. Over the centuries regulations had been brought in at the pits, but this would only have been with the consent of the landowners, most of whom were members of parliament. It was not until 1842 that an Act of Parliament brought a stop to women and children under 10 working underground. The women were not barred because it was thought they should not do such work, but because in the heat of a pit they would strip off just as the men did to work, and this was a "distraction." Prior to that there was a strike in Northumberland that reduced children's hours from 17 to 12 a day. In the early days, children just a few years old would work alone in the pitch black tunnels for up to 18 hours with just a candle and rats running over their feet, opening and closing the traps (doors). Even 55 years ago, Mike began his "adult" life at just 15 down the Ashington Pit. He only served five years but has retired back to Ashington after a stint away and taken a keen interest in the history of mining. He recalls his own initiation into the colliery. "I came home on the day before Good Friday as I left school. My mother said, `your dinner's on the table and you start at the pit on Tuesday'. "It wasn't my choice, but then there wasn't any other choice. "Of the 30 or so boys in my class, 28 would have gone down the pit, the other two would have been shop boys, butcher's apprentice or similar. But even those two would have ended up in the pits when they saw that all their friends were bringing home more money than they were."
Mike Kirkup (first right, middle row) as a trainee aged 15 at Ashington pit in 1949.
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He worked with a pit pony named Frank. The ponies were originally bred in Galloway and were known by the pitmen as "Gallowas." They arrived at the pits at four-years-old and remained underground, where there were purpose-built stables, until they were 20 or 25. At Ashington pit alone there were 400 pit ponies. It is very much its mining history that makes the North-East region what it is. Ashington, for example, quickly went from a sleepy village of around 100 people to a bustling 30,000 strong town. The in-comers, including lead miners from Cumbria, tin miners from Cornwall, the Irish hit by potato blight and the Lincolnshire folk suffering from bad harvests brought new religions, dialects, values and practices that eventually became melded together. Even many place names are tied up with the industry. Places such as Esh Winning, in County Durham, and West Sleekburn, in Northumberland, known locally as "Winnin," relate to the "winning of coal." Mike recalls that in the 50s, Ashington had the best shopping street outside Newcastle, including department stores. Although mining conditions were tough, coal brought prosperity to the region - even if most of it went into the hands of the landowning classes. In recent times the miners became some of the best paid manual workers in Britain. But Mike says: "The difficulty was they felt it would last for ever. But of course the best seams had been mined first in the pits and accessing the others meant productivity fell. "Of course, we know what happened to the pits in recent times and unemployment is still high in places like Ashington, which was known as the world's largest pit village." * To find out more about mining history go to Woodhorn Colliery Museum, signposted off the A189 near Ashington, Northumberland. It re-opens after a massive overhaul in spring 2006, tel: (01670) 856-968. Related stories:
At the centre of the storm - Mar 9 2004
Between a rock and a coal face - March 8 2004 Page 2: Black diamonds kept London warm | 
