Always A Colliery Lass

A Memory of Easington Colliery.

I was born late 1959 at Little Thorpe Maternity Hospital. I lived in Arthur Street with my parents Alan and Ada Robson and my newly widowed grandfather Bob Mckee. My grandmother, Lizzie, sadly passed away a year before I came into the world. My dad was a welder at the colliery and this was the workplace of nearly all male members of my family. I used to play inside the pit canteen and pit baths (unthinkable today). We had no bathroom and an outside toilet. We only had a triplex and an open fire to heat the whole house. To keep warm we used paraffin heaters, and I can remember a man coming round the streets selling paraffin in his van. I think his name was Mr Elwell. So many characters I can remember clearly, Reggie Parkin with his horse, Sarah, and his cart selling fruit and veg, Harry Horton, an eccentric man who anyone from the colliery would know. Seaside Lane shops. Tates the Butchers, Robinsons Paper shop, Walter Wilson's the Meadow Dairy, Kilburns, Mr Snowden and his son in their grocery shop, Burdes's Bakery (who could forget those pies). Across to Bede Street and Mary Sparrow's, Blowers the Butchers and Fairs Fish and Chips. Ladiesware shop Nelly Morgan for the "classy lassy". I attended Easington Colliery infants then Junior schools. My infants school headmistress was called Miss Crisp. Teachers names I recall include Mrs Knowles, Mrs Sides, Miss Nicholson and the formidable Miss Cook. I went on to Easington Secondary school and left at sixteen. At twenty one I married and left Easington and moved to Chester-le-Street where I still reside. My parents still live in Easington and only recently I re-visited the remains of my childhood memories. It is sad to see the demise of what once was a bustling friendly community, but I still felt a familiar homecoming that tells me no matter where I roam I will always be a Colliery Lass