Looking Back To The Early Days

A Memory of Easington Colliery.

I was born in rented 'rooms' at Wordsworth Road in 1936 and came to move with my parents to five different addresses at Easington before I moved away from the area, when I married in 1963. But although my wife Ann comes from Shotton Colliery, events took us initially to Hull. I was always known as Harold in Easington, but became 'Harry' to outsiders.

My late father and mother were born in 1909, a century ago. My father Joseph known as 'Joe' was born in Sunderland, but in 1912 my grandfather John Barnes (who had moved around a great deal across County Durham to find pit work) and my grandmother 'Polly' finally settled in Easington Colliery for the rest of their lives with an established family of six boys and a girl. All the boys came to work at Easington pit, with only Uncle Arthur finally moving away to join the RAF in 1937. Aunt Ada also married a local miner.

My father was in the pit during the 1951 disaster, but was working in a different seam to the explosion. He lived to see the pit close in 1993, dying three years afterwards. He was well known in the Colliery and carried on playing in local football as a goalkeeper until he was 40, having had a spell as an amateur with Hartlepool United back in the 1932-33 season.

My mother Betsy (known as 'Betty') was born into a mining family in Sunniside near Tow Law. When the pits started to close in the South West Durham Coalfield, her two brothers Bill and Robert found work at Easington pit and this enabled their widowed mother ('Lizzy' Gray) to obtain a Council House as the family base at Harrison Terrace around (I was told) 1929. Uncle Robert finally moved away, but two of the four girls in the family married miners. My Aunt Alice's husband worked at Horden Colliery. The other girl to marry a miner being my mother in 1933. Uncle Bill remained at Easington pit.

My mother was an active Methodist, first at the Bourne Methodist Chapel and then when it closed in 1956 at St John's. I was also a regular at the Bourne Methodists until I left to undertake my National Service at 18.

When I returned home in 1956 my interests had turned to politics and I became Secretary of the Easington Colliery Labour Party and the Peterlee and District Fabian Society between 1958 and 1960, before I left to study Politics and Economics at Ruskin College. I went on to teach politics and industrial relations to trade unionists (mainly miners) and before retirement had a period as Labour MP for NE Derbyshire (1987-2005).

Although my parents moved about a great deal in differing 'rooms' during their early married life, their main addresses were at Harrison Terrace (four doors from Lizzy Gray, my grandmother), Baldwin Street and in Donnini House.  Unfortunately, my mother suffered from Alzheimer's from her mid eighties and ended her days in the nursing home which at one time had been the Colliery Manager's house. She outlived my father by 3 years, who towards the end of his life spent a great deal of his time visiting her at the Dene Hall Nursing Home on Station Road.

At the moment I am conducting research into Easington Colliery's history as it existed prior to when my own memories first clicked in as a child late in 1940 or so. As the start on sinking the initial pit shaft started in 1899 (and the first coal was not drawn until 1910) this is a telling pioneering period of some 4 decades. It covers the crippling influenza epidemic of 1918, the 13 week lock-out at the pit in 1921, the 30 week strike of 1926 which developed out of the General Strike and the economic depression which hit Easington hard with the closure of a main seam in 1933. On the other side of the coin, Easington grew into a closely knit and self supporting community in this period. The first permanent Colliery Houses were built at South in 1909, passenger train services commenced in 1912 and schools, shops, cinemas, working men's clubs, pubs, chapels, churches, private terraced housing, council houses, doctor's services, Aged Miners Homes, the Miners' Welfare and the Welfare grounds with its football pitches, a cricket pitch and other facilities were all established. By 1931, the total population of Easington Colliery and Village was 12,000. Nearly 10,000 lived at the Colliery whose area had only been farm and open land with a couple of quarries and a few cottages as the 20th Century approached. Many of its new provisions were provided by communal efforts, including the significant contribution of the Easington Lodge of the Durham Miners' Association.  

Although I am pursuing a number of published and unpublished sources, if anyone holds any family or other records of Easington Colliery in the period from 1899 to 1940 or so then I would be grateful if they would share any of the the details they feel able to via this facility.