Pit Village In My Youth

A Memory of Thornley.

My name is Ken Orton and I lived in Thornley from 1947 until 1974, the year I married. I was born in Shadforth but my parents moved from there to Thornley when I was about one month old. We lived at 72, Thornlaw North until 1967 and then moved to 2, St Cuthbert Road, where I lived until I met my wife and married.
My childhood in Thornley was a marvellous time and I would not have liked to have lived anywhere else than in a pit village when I was growing up. Although we didn't have much, because my dad was a pitman and there were six children in the family, everybody we knew was the same as us and so we never missed what we never had. We always had enough to eat and presents for birthdays and Christmas, although not as much as bairns nowadays. Even my bairns did better that I did but, since we didn't expect to have a great deal, we were never disappointed.
I loved it in Thornley. There was always plenty to do. My mates and I used to go all over: out into the countyside; up to Wheatley Hill and over to Ludworth or Cassop, or any of the surrounding villages, really. At Cassop, there was the Vale and over towards Trimdon there were the quarries. Try it now and there would be Health & Safety to reckon with! There were two recreation grounds in our village with swings and a mountain glide, and we would play football and cricket in their seasons. If we were lost for something to do, we often walked down the Little Dene, or over to the Moors, taking with us a pop bottle filled with water and perhaps a sandwich (the latter not very often!). Then there was the Big Dene, over near Shadforth, where there were hazelnut bushes and a crab-apple tree. In season we would always go blackberrying and try to sell them around the doors, failing which we ate them!
There were loads of ways of making a bit of spare cash, because pocket-money was usually in short supply. We would put coals in for neighbours: the coals were off-loaded by a coal-wagon at the front gate and we carried them in pails to the coal house, or, if we were lucky, the neighbour might have a barrow, which made the job a lot easier! We would chop sticks for kindling, tie them up in bundles with string and sell them at tuppence (two old pence) a bundle. And, as I said before, in season, we could sell wild fruit to anyone who would have them. We needed to do these sorts of things because we never had much money.
We also used to make our own toys such as wooden guns, bows and arrows from the dykes (hedgerows), bats of various types from any suitable old bit of wood which came to hand, kites from newspaper, sticks, string and wallpaper paste to stick it all together. We made many toys ourselves, once the Christmas gifts were broken, or had lost their appeal. Then there were glass alleys (marbles) which could be bought at the local shop, when we were in funds.
I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it was to live in Thornley when we were young. I find it difficult to imagine how children of today don't want to experience the sort of life we had in those days. It was great! We had plenty of fresh air and exercise, and we didn't even know that it was doing us good; we wre just having fun!
Now, when I revisit Thornley I could almost weep to see what has happened to the dear old place since the pit shut. Although it was a hard and dangerous job to have to do (many ex-pitmen I have spoken to would disagree!), the life-style it supported was better than today's by a long chalk and I wish that we could have that sort of close community life nowadays. Thornley (and, by extension, all pit villages) was a great place to live in the 1950s and 1960s, when I was young. Would that it were now.   

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