Great Memories Of This Area

A Memory of Thornhill.

Really it was 1961-66. I worked as a Geologist for the United Steel Companies based in Rotherham. I visited Haile Moor and Beckermet Mines every two or three weeks for 5 years and came to love the area and its people with a passion which has never diminished. It was my first job after leaving University and although, I have worked all over the world, I still regard those West Cumberland years as the best. At first I stayed at the Scawfell Hotel in Seascale. A funny, cronky wee place with a great cocktail bar and other public rooms which were in a 1930's timewarp. I once returned to my room very late after boozy nght with a friend in Egremont to find I had left my key in the room and there was no night porter. I was about to take up a sleeping mode in the adjacent bathroom (no en suite in those days) when I remembered a trick I'd seen in the movies. I cut a strip of plastic film from a mapcase I had in the car and used it to slip the bolt on the Yale lock. Didn't expect it to work but it it did. Nowadays, you would use your credit card.
Later I stayed at The Black Beck hotel, in the days of Brian Barwise. Just after he started to convert it from what had been a very fine house. I understand he now lives on the backroad from Calderbridge to Haile near Robertgate Bridge.
It's obvious from the above that I passed regularly through Thornhill. I had a special pal, sadly now dead, Russell Harrington, who was the Banksman at Haile Moor Mine and who lived in Haile Moor Cottages. I still keep in touch with his widow Eunice. Russell and I used to drink regularly in the pub across the main road from Thornhill. I can't remember its name??? The ***** Inn (? Sun). We were also regulars at the Fleece in C'Bridge, The Stanley Arms and that pub down the road towards Gosforth (?The Admiral ***) , plus the pub at Santon Brig'.Those were the days.
I had another friend who lived in Thornhill. I am ashamed to say I can't remember his surname. I keep saying Bob..., Bob..., Bob..., in my head hoping it will come to me. He was a Deputy (ie Underground Foreman) at Haile Moor Mine. His son, an Electrican at Beckermet Mine, was killed in a stupid accident in ?1968. Another Deputy of note was Alf Varah, a big man. Also Wilf***. Does anyone remember Alan*** the Surface Foreman at Haile Moor, Bob Bigrigg the Lamp Cabin man. Frank Fee(Feezo) the Chief Electrician at Beckermet. George"totsie" Boness from Cleater Moor, a great miner who, together with many others, gave me huge amounts of information about large areas of Haile Moor Mine which were no longer accessible. Drinking with them was an enormous pleasure and a valuable learning process. They taught me my trade. Then there were the great stone drifters and rise men. Jimmy Martin and Arthur Young of 19 Company. The Italian lads Guidio Armellino and his brother. Also and not least, Isaac 'Ike' Walker Manager at Haile Moor,who was a b***** old buffoon but, who nevertheless taught me a great deal. His wife's 'tatie pot' was great. Many's the time, after dinner, we had an argument about some point of Geology and roared off, seriously enebriated, to go down the pit at 9.00pm to resolve the matter. Wonderful, wonderful days that still live with me at age 76 years. We were down the Pit on one such exercise when JFK was assassinated. We came up the pit and went to thank Hughie Dixon, the Engineman, for "the wind", and he told us the President had been killed.
Finishing this account would not be complete without reference to my very special friend Gilbert Finlinson of Frizington. Manager at Haile Moor and Manager at Florence Mine, the last underground iron ore mine in Europe. We still get together from time to time and "mine a few thousand tons of Haematite in our mind's eye".
In the distant past, I think Gilbert and myself, with our attitudes. could have done great things for iron ore mining in Cumberland.
However HOONOZE!!
Geoff Potts (Paisley 27/03/2011)

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