N C B Days

A Memory of Witton Gilbert.

In the early years, when I worked for the N C B at Langley Park Pit, all the lads, myself included, looked up to the big coal hewers, Garforth, Calland, Gardner and Co, but there was another fella there that we would like to be a friend of but were too young. His name was Dennis James, he joined the army and when he came home on leave he brought with him a monkey. This monkey kept getting out into the streets. It would get into other peoples houses via open windows upstairs and run allong rooftops and into a neighbor's house, wrecking every thing on its way. There were always a lot of dogs running loose in Langley Park in those days and it was absolute chaos when 5 or 6 dogs got to chasing the monkey around the streets, yelping and barking like a pack of fox hounds. I think Dennis lived in Railway Street, but anyway there were wooden railings all along the street and the monkey would get up on the railings with a stick and hit the dogs and throw stones at them; monkey always won. There's a story that monkey jumped on a dog's back and hung on to its ears and rode it right up the street. Dennis may like to come on Frith and tell us the full story. I looked forward to coming to the surface and hearing what monkey had been up to today. No doubt Garforth and those older than me will know more about it. Come on George, tell us a bit more, love to hear from you or Dennis, best wishes, David. PS thank you Ann.