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- Herausgeber: McNidder and Grace
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Pitmaticbrings together a wonderful regional pit language – its words, jokes and stories that are fast disappearing from our culture. This book helps attest to the remarkable vitality of the region's dialect and the inventiveness and humour of its speakers. The last major mine in the North East region closed in 2005 and with it went a way of life. Through dialect words, humour, stories and songs Pitmatic will help you to understand the everyday lives and work of miners. Miners who provided fuel, helped sustain an economy, consolidated communities and created a unique and rich regional culture. This book is a joyous celebration of the history of the North East bringing together the words spoken by miners and their families and how they related to the wider languages of the world. The late Bill Griffiths (1948–2007)was an extraordinary writer and poet: radical, experimental and scholarly, but also had a great sense of humour. He was a wonderful champion of the North East, its people and heritage. Born in Middlesex, he read history before graduating in 1969. Bill ran his own independent press and published political pamphlets and essays on the arts and poetry. After gaining a PhD in Old English he fled London and settled in Seaham where he embraced the northern way of life. 'He was also a scholar of Old English and dialect who know how to make his work accessible. Private and uncompetitive, he was at least these things: poet, archivist, scholar, translator, prison-rights campaigner, pianist, historian, curator, performer, editor, short-story writer, essayist, teacher, book-maker and lyricist… The Saturday before he died, Bill discharged himself from hospital to host the Dialect Day at the Morden Tower in Newcastle upon Tyne. He died as he lived: cataloguing, awarding Best Dialect prizes, opera on his radio, the poetry paramount.' Obituary, The Independent, 20 September 2007.
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i
Pitmatic
Stories and the Talk of the North East Coalfield
Bill Griffithsii
Contents
Introduction
Northumberland and Durham Coalfield. Area, 460 square miles; length from north to south, 50 miles; breadth, 23 miles at widest part; thickness of workable coal, 46 feet; number of seams, 16 to 20; probable available quantity of coal, 2,867,307,000 tons.
This old and important coalfield stretches over the greater portion of the counties of Northumberland and Durham. It extends from the River Coquet in the north to Staindrop (on the north of the Tees) in the south; and from Ponteland and Wolsingham in the west to the North Sea on the east.
James Tonge, The Principles and Practice of Coal Mining, 1906
From the 1740s on, coal was being used in the manufacture of iron; coal became the mobile source of power for industry in place of the fixed-location waterwheel. It was the mining (tin and coal) industry and its need for power for pumping and winding engines that prompted the development of efficient steam engines (powered by coal!) and nurtured the science of geology. The demand for coal to power railway engines and ships and the nation’s factories meant a massive expansion of coal production in the mid nineteenth century, till by 1900 it might be said that Coal was Great Britain. The dependency didn’t end there: by-products of coke manufacture included gas for lighting and cooking, and an important chemicals industry.
Coal and coke remained important in the twentieth century, but the dominance of the home industry was increasingly challenged by the rise of the combustion engine, imports of cheaper coal, the discovery of offshore oil and gas, the need for a cleaner environment, and political distrust of the workforce.
2Today, no chimneys evidence coal smoke; and those who remember the great days of coal are relatively few. There is no sign of the great collieries that dominated the landscape, and it is increasingly hard to picture the way of life that was mining. Scattered villages remain with their typical colliery rows, struggling for a new lease of life. And the very language that was the common speech of miners and their families is challenged by the continuing rise of International English.
Nonetheless, in a very real sense, the North East remains the product of coal – the distribution of its settlements, the preeminence of Newcastle upon Tyne, the family and social structures, even the sense of humour – are basically part of the culture of coal. This book is centered on one aspect of that long tradition, the way words represented mining life and technology. The voice of dialect endures, if patchily: its intonation, its word preferences and local differences, for example, and it is possible still to recover much of the phrasing and terminology that marked out the miner.
But first, it will be well to remind ourselves of what a mine ‘felt’ like working at a local colliery.
Memories of Seaham Colliery
Initial impressions on first day at work were a little frightening. Dirt, noise and strange smells assaulted the senses.
Once you were kitted out with your overalls, belt, boots and hard hat, you were introduced to your new marras. Everyone made you feel at home straight away, humour played a major part of this process. If you showed a weakness or had a physical feature out of the ordinary, this was seized upon and many lifelong nicknames were bestowed in this manner. You learned to give as well as you got.
This was no place for being ‘precious’ or being overly sensitive. The language was of the ‘industrial’ variety interspersed with a thousand dialect or slang terms – and this wasn’t confined to the labour force by any means, most colliery managers and their officials could express themselves most colourfully.
Working ‘at bank’ was no less arduous than conditions underground in that the dirt and noise was a constant factor. 3Seaham Colliery Washery would not have been out of place in Dante’s worst nightmares. You worked with the incessant racket of the belts moving the coal through the washing process. One of the main tasks was shifting the never-ending streams of slurry on the floors, with water dripping down your neck.
All these sensations continued unabated 24 hours a day and, during the peak times of coal production, all weekend too. However, overtime or a bit dot, was usually well subscribed, the money was pretty good compared to other local industries. A standing joke was aimed at colleagues who worked seven days a week as being in the SAS – Saturdays And Sundays! Sometimes arguments broke out if it was perceived that somebody may have been getting more than their fair share of overtime.
A few of the lads were what would be called ‘Special Needs’ these days, but there were no major problems because the stronger lads would look after these guys like big brothers. When the pit shut, I saw one or two of these fellas who had gone to pieces because they had lost that support from their marras.
A good barter system went on at most pits, based on mutual favours. If a brickie wanted some wiring done at home one of the leckys would come out and sort it in return for some pointing or similar. If someone couldn’t offer a trade off, then the job would be done for a minimum rate – usually covering the cost of materials.
Practical jokes weren’t uncommon at Seaham either, ranging from bricking up the inside of a locker to picking up a small car and turning it 180 degrees in the car park. A skeleton sat on the rafters in the fitting shops for a long time.
The locos used on bank to move the coal wagons down to the British Rail sidings, or the shale trucks to the harbour, were involved in many hair-raising incidents. Getting ‘amain’ was the term for a runaway train. This usually happened with a greasy rail and entailed the whole train careering down the incline until either the shunters on board managed to jump off and wedge some brakes on, or the driver regained control (usually with the help of copious amounts of sand). Now and 4again though the trucks ended the experience themselves by parting company with the tracks.
Mining was always a high-risk industry, it was a lucky man who never suffered some form of injury and many paid the ultimate price, though in the latter years of North East mining fatalities were mercifully fewer as safety became the priority. Unfortunately, there were a couple of fatalities at Seaham Colliery through the Eighties, one on bank the other underground.
One Onsetter knew the old workings by heart and used to go off exploring alone, a highly risky business – not to mention eerie! However, he could tell you stories that would keep you riveted for hours.
Ghosts? Yes, there were a few, inevitable for a pit the age of Seaham. The boy on the landing, the man with no features who rode the cage with lone miners, the sounds of the ‘dreg’ on the way and no trace on investigation, the apparition seen outside Christchurch gate from two different angles by separate people, the list goes on. Real phenomena, or the imaginings of tired and stressed workers? Including the two explosions, there must have been about 300 deaths during Seaham’s span so who knows.
The last years were painful to watch. First the Board spent a lot of money on the Colliery, re-painted the car park, installed security cameras and imported lots of new equipment, all tried and tested methods of ensuring the balance sheet showed red! Then the trickle of transfers to the Vane Tempest Colliery grew larger until only a maintenance staff were left as custodians. Then the fateful day when they blew up the winding gear and killed ‘The Nack’ for ever.
Steve Barnett
Seaham Colliery itself is said to have become a virtual maze of passages and old workings, and it is not surprising that at nationalisation in 1947 its ‘small circuitous roadways and drifts’ led to its being considered unsuitable for major investment. In its later years the pit served as a washery and processing annex to the Vane Tempest, with which it was connected underground. (The two pits were amalgamated in 1987.) It is a great pity that 5no practical model of its workings exists. Though hidden from the eye, a coalmine is surely as great a work of industrial architecture as any bridge or building – only in reverse!
Completely different might be the experience of a visitor, here a lady from the wages office:
You went down?
I went down, yes, I went down the pit. I was down for about three hours.
Of course, knowing a lot of the men [from their] coming to the pay window, when I was going round the pit people I met said “Oh, nice to see you Miss Turner”, [and] dabbed my face. I was in such a state. I went down with Mr. Hardy, the Engineer, his daughter and her young man, and Mr. Jefferson, he was the foreman plumber. I had to go to Hardy’s house and have a bath before I could come home. I was in such a state.
Oh, when we got into the cage; talk about lifts. It’s a wonder my heart didn’t come out of me mouth. Mr. Hardy said “just step into this, step in here and just wait here for a little while”. And when they knew somebody was going down, like Mr. Hardy’s daughter and like me, from the office, what they would do [was] let the cage away, let this thing drop so far and then stop. You can imagine what it was like. He says “You’ll be alright”. I went down again, when it stopped. [“Are we there yet?”] He says “Oh no, we’ve just come down a few feet”. I said “How far we’ve to go?” I’ve forgotten how far he said it was, how many feet. I can’t stand it, I’ll die.
However, we got down to the bottom: couldn’t see anything, there was this dust road right away along… sort of done with arch girders; then there were props, [and] just [a low] roof, done with these wooden props, chocks.
When I was down I saw little ponies, I could have wept, poor little things, spending all their lives down in the dark. When we went right into the face where they hewed coal, I hewed a tiny piece of coal, it was about as much I could do to lift the pick, but I had to bring this piece out, piece about as big as my hand.
Miss Turner, Beamish, 1983/235
6And overall, there was the darkness:
How did you feel the first time you went down?
Well rather funny. I didn’t feel. I mean we always talk about pits you know and you think that it must have been imprinted on your mind, you see. I didn’t take it as badly as I thought I might have done. Mind, the darkness – that hits you straight away. It is completely dark. You used to think the ‘black out’ [in the war] was dark. You can’t imagine the darkness down the pit until you go down. You can’t see a glint of anything once you lose your light. It is complete darkness which you never really got. Even in the ‘black out’.
J. Agar, Beamish, 1984/253
Chapter 1
Pitmatic
Central to understanding the working of a pit is the language used, of object, action, skill, and this study aims to broaden our perception of ‘Pitmatic’, and recapture something of the spirit as well as the technology of former times.
The words ‘Pitmatics’ and ‘Pitmatical’ are surely formed by analogy with Mathematics, Mathematical, as a halfhumorous half-serious way of describing the skill or practical craft of mining – Heslop in the 1880s gives “pitmatics – the technicalities of colliery-working” in his list of ‘Northumberland’ words. But it was also used to describe a type of speech and in the form Pitmatical is noted even earlier, in a newspaper report of a demonstration by miners in Newcastle in 1873. Here it seems to mean the everyday dialect of miners:
8A great many of the lads, especially from the Durham district, had evidently never been in Newcastle previously, and the air of wonder with which they gazed at the crowds, at the buildings, and especially at the fine folks who occupied the windows, was very amusing. If the quality criticized and quizzed them, the lads returned the compliment, and it was entertaining enough to catch snatches of criticism on the manners and customs of the upper ten thousand of Newcastle, reduced to the purest ‘pitmatical’, shouted across the streets, as the men and lads belonging to collieries swept by where I stood in the crowd.
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, 19 April 1873
This becomes Pitmatic by 1885, and placed more precisely in the workplace:
After a few minutes delay in the overman’s cabin, thronged with men talking an unintelligible language, known, I was informed, as Pitmatic, we took our places in one of a long train of tubs, which, on a signal being given, started for the heart of the mine.
TheTimes, 21 August 1885
The next mention equates Pitmatic with dialect in general; it is not entirely complimentary:
Happily, the younger miners, while possessing a liberal reserve of ‘Pitmatic’ for street-end and other familiar uses, are able to converse in a near approach to conventional English.
Northern Daily News, 31 May 1919
While a more technical context is suggested in this reference to Seaham Pit in the 1920s:
I was also acquiring a new language. This was ‘pitmatic’. It was a mixture of the broadest dialect of Durham and a number of words (often of foreign origin) used exclusively by pitmen when below ground.
George Hitchin, Pit-Yacker, 1962
9When J.B. Priestley made his tour of England in 1933, he remarked on ‘Pitmatik’, in a similarly work (or is it a male?) context:
The local miners [in Durham] have a curious lingo of their own, which they call ‘pitmatik’. It is only used by the pitmen when they are talking among themselves. When the pitmen are exchanging stories of colliery life… they do it in ‘pitmatik’.
J.B. Priestley, EnglishJourney,1934
So does the word mean the technical language, the everyday language, or the ‘private’ language of pitmen? An element of all three, surely. Consider the analysis offered by a Parliamentary Commissioner in the 1840s when faced with the task of interviewing North East pitmen:
The barriers to our intercourse were formidable. In fact, their numerous mining technicalities, northern provincialisms [i.e. dialect words], peculiar intonation and accents, and rapid and indistinct utterance, rendered it essential for me… to devote myself to the study of these peculiarities ere I could translate and write the evidence.
ParliamentaryPapers(PP), 1842
A multiple or open definition of Pitmatic may be vague, but the term has proved its usefulness by remaining current, and even today serves as a good shorthand for the dialect of the Great North Coalfield – a dialect which owes much to the mining way of life for its development, even though the pits are no more. Here we will be looking primarily at ‘Pitmatic’ as technical terms, with an awareness that these were often adapted from pre-industrial or non-industrial usage, and in turn affected the dialect of everyone in the region.
Adaptation from a rural world
The men who moved to work in the collieries of Tyneside and Wearside in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were drawn largely from the surrounding countryside. As Heslop (1892–96) 10puts it: “To these dalesmen [i.e. from Tynedale and Riddesdale] we owe the strong clanship of the colonies of pitmen and keelmen scattered along Tyneside and throughout the colliery districts”.
Not surprisingly, they brought with them their particular customs and their language – retaining many features of the Old English of the Anglo-Saxons and the Old Norse of the Vikings. This speech contrasted notably with the more educated, metropolitan manners and English of the citizens of Newcastle. Though the talk of the pitmen and their families might seem novel and strange to city-folk, it was of course the more authentic, traditional speech of the region, and many of the words needed for the new technology of mining were in fact ‘rural’ words adapted to a new context:
Bogey– “Agricultural. A low, two-wheeled sleigh-cart for carrying hay to the stack without the trouble of pitching. The ‘pikes’ are drawn on to this cart by a rope, the ends of which are wound round a windlass-roller at the front end of the cart. Also, a square wooden truck on four wheels, for the purpose of removing heavy goods a short distance, called also a ‘tram’. Down the pit, a bogey with an iron pin about two feet long, at each of the four corners, to prevent the timber and rails from falling off, would be called a ‘horney tram’” (Palgrave, Hetton, 1896).
Braffen– the standard term for a halter round a horse’s neck, based on plaited straw, becomes a leather pad for carrying anything on shoulder (Seaham, 1930s).
Cansh – obstructive stone, was originally a ‘step’ of rock, sand or other obstacle in a waterway. (“Sha’s gitten ov a kansh, i.e. the coble had run ashore on a ridge in the harbour” – Umpleby, Staithes.)
Cat-band– both an iron band for securing cover of a hatch in a keel and a band on a corf to take a hook (Heslop, N’d, 1880s).
Cavil – to choose the work station by lot – was probably the same process used to allot shares of the olden common field since medieval times: “The most common method of working the meadows was to divide them into strips or ‘dales’, and these were allocated annually by lot or rotation, or on a more permanent basis” (Baker & Butlin, 1973).
Daytaleman– is explained thus in the 1820s: “a day labourer, chiefly in husbandry… a man whose labour is… reckoned by the day, not by the week or year. Daytalemen, about coal pits, are those who are not employed in working the coal” (Brockett, Newcastle, 1820s).
Gate– from the Old Norse, meaning a roadway, used underground of main passages.
11Goaf– again from Old Norse, meaning the bay of a barn with its wooden supports (and attested in that sense in East Anglia at least), becomes the part of a coal mine where the coal has been removed and only the structure of props holds up the roof. (Though in turn, the void emptied of props and support, ready to ‘drop’, suggests a further link, with ‘gulf ’.)
Hack– like ‘pick’ and ‘mell’ (hammer) were traditional terms for tools, from agriculture as well as from wood and metal working.
Inbye, outbye – this is reported of directions and fields around a farm, e.g. on Teesside and at Barnard Castle.
Rammel– Old French ramaille ‘branches’, source of rammel ‘brushwood, rubbish’, and in the pit, worthless stone mixing with the coal (Terry Hagan, Wheatley Hill).
Stook – the last remaining section of a pillar of coal is the agricultural word for an upright stack of cut corn left in the field to dry.
Distribution and consistency
Before the term ‘Geordie’ for Tyneside language was fostered by Scott Dobson in 1969, Pitmatic was the only term available to describe popular industrial speech in the area (‘Pit-yack’ sems a relatively modern term, ?1950s).
The mobility of population in the North East in the nineteenth century – notably among colliery workers – would lead us to expect a measure of regional consistency in speech. As far as Pitmatic relates to technical terms, there is reasonable unity throughout the Great Northern Coalfield – strikingly so when compared to variants in other coalfields or even in Pennine lead mining.
Contrast with lead mines
The standard word for a lead mine, e.g. in the Pennines, was a ‘groove’, a pitman ‘a groover’ – linked to the Old English grafan‘to dig’. Wm Hooson’s mining dictionary of 1747 (relating to Derbyshire) contains only a few words in common with our coalfield – corf, kibble – the majority of terms being quite alien, e.g. kyles, for ‘small wedges’ to keep the head on a tool; scrin ‘the least or smallest kind of veins’, etc.
Kathleen Teward’s Teisdal’ en how twas spok’n (Teesdale, 2003) includes a few terms on lead mining from Newbiggin-in-Teesdale that also contrast with coal mine usage:
12Bros – a mixture of stone and ore.
Buddle – to wash waste from ore and lead [in a moveable wooden ‘box’ with water running through it].
Jagger(pony)– a small pony used in the mines [also listed by Hooson].
Jiggers – a moving wooden waterway in mining [later adopted in a coal washery also?].
A possible origin for ‘bord’ in coal mining is suggested as follows: “…a ‘bord’, meaning a gallery, owes its origins to the lead miner. Most Pennines lead seams were near vertical and to reach the ore, boards were wedged above the workings, to provide a platform from which the miners could work. As the exploitation of the seam progressed the next bite at the seam was described as ‘the next bord’” (Temple, 1994).
Nonetheless, it seems fair to conclude that the traditions of the two types of mine had not much in common. Each was a specialist job, in separate zones, with different ways of winning and processing minerals, that had evolved separately.
Equally alien are the terms for Cornish tin mining, e.g.
Gunnis– a narrow linear excavation left where a lode has been worked, most commonly used when open to surface.
Leat– an artificial water-course, built to carry a supply of water to a mine.
Sett – one of a series of stone supports for a tramway, performing the same function as sleepers.
Stope– excavated area produced during the extraction of ore-bearing rock – though it has kibble and skip in common with the Northern Coalfield.
Contrast with other coalfields
While there is reasonable consistency in technical terms between coalfields, there is also a marked variation in familiar terms. The following examples are drawn primarily from Harry Tootle’s dictionary.
At bank – abin (Scots).
Bait– bag or bagging (Lancs); snap (Yorks); tommy (Teesside); piece (Scots).
Bank/top of shaft – mine head (Scots).
13Banksman – puller-off (Mids).
Bords – panels (S.Wales).
Cauldron bottom or carving arse (fossil in roof) – “‘kettle bottoms’ in other coalfields”, Sharkey; ‘bell’ S.Wales.
Chocks – clogs (Yorks).
Cow– backstay (Yorks), devil, dog (Lancs).
Creep/heave – squeeze (S.Wales).
Drag (brake) – ‘snibble’ or ‘spragg’ (Scots).
Foal or half-marrow – pusher (Somerset) (a small boy who helped the ‘twin-boy’ or ‘carting-boy’ to get a loaded ‘put’ of coal up an incline by pushing from the back).
Gavelock – coopreise (Yorks).
Heap– the colliery area (N.East) – the colliery waste tip (Lancs, Scots).
Hedgehog(a twist or snarl in a rope) – kank (Mids).
Hewers – pikemen (S.Staffs).
Hoggers – pit drawers (Lancs).
Inbye, outbye – inwan, outwan (Scots).
Jowling– chapping (Scots), knockings (S.Wales).
Keps – fallers (Lancs), cage shuts (Scots).
Kibble – kip (Mids).
Kist(a tool box) – meaning a cabin in the pit (Lancs), a mobile water tank (Scots).
Marra – butty (S.Wales).
Onsetter – knocker (Lancs, Wales).
Pick – mandrill (S.Wales).
Pillar,stook– post (Derbys).
Pneumaticpick– jabber (Lancs).
Putters– hurriers (S.Wales).
Ripping – brushing (Scots).
Stone/spoil(waste rock) – attle (S.Wales).
Sylvester – buller/cronjie (S.Wales).
Token– motty (Lancs, Yorks).
Tram– horned danny (Mids).
Trapper– door boy (Somerset).
14Vest, undersark – peeweet (Scots).
Water bottle – jack (S.Wales).
Though the evidence here is selective, it is perhaps enough to assert that as far as terminology is concerned, there was a measure of independence among the various coalfields. This is not surprising considering that commercial mining goes back at least to the seventeenth century in most areas, and that some 300 years of private, local ownership and operation preceded the linking-up of Nationalisation in 1947.
Variation within the Great North Coalfield
There were two pressures for local variation in the Great North Coalfield: firstly the expected variation between different localities with slightly different dialect backgrounds – this aspect was perhaps underlined in the nineteenth century by the local nature of the smaller pits and in the twentieth century by the relatively low mobility of the workforce between pits. A second force was of course the division of the coalfield between various landowners, such as the Earls of Durham, the Londonderrys, the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral, and many smaller owners or lessees of mineral rights, with the result that mining terminology evolved slightly differently from pit to pit. This variation is best illustrated in everyday dialect terms (like synonyms for ‘turnip’, the divvent/dinnut division, etc.), but even here might not the ‘boundaries’ be a matter of colliery groupings, and the limiting of ‘divvent’ reflect the coherence of early collieries on Tyneside? As examples of variation in mining terminology we have:
For a pneumatic pick: windy pick (Dawdon), pompom (Seaham), jigger (Winlaton). Bumpers (Nth Walbottle) – pullers (S.W.Durham).
Deputy (standard) – puffler (Sacriston).
Goaf – grove [sic] – “a space in a seam from which coal has been taken” (Wade, South Moor, 1966); also ‘gob’ and ‘waste’.
Spider (Glebe Colliery) for tram.
Mistress and midgey for an open lamp (putters’ terms).
15Clanney and chenny (Thornley) for a type of safety lamp. Despite these minor variants, Pitmatic, as far as it applies to the technical terminology of the pit, is remarkably consistent throughout the Great North Coalfield; slightly less so if a wider range of everyday dialect is considered.
Imported, Invented and Diverging Words
‘To mine’ (to excavate, to dig) has had many applications beside the winning of coal: building stone, precious stones, mineral ores have been dug for since prehistoric times. The preferred medieval method of mining was to excavate downwards from the land level and extract material in relatively safe and shallow ‘bell pits’ – the word ‘quarry’ is significantly absent from Old English. Mining as tunneling was certainly practiced in the Middle Ages, usually in simple horizontal ‘adits’ into a hillside; yet when it came to putting mineral mining on a commercial footing in sixteenth century England, it was customary to bring over experts from the Continent.
In 1452 Henry VI brought skilled miners of Saxon origin from Bohemia and Hungary and Edward VI granted mine leases to Germans in Northumberland and Westmorland. Queen Elizabeth in 1562 sent to Germany for miners for sorting, sieving and washing copper ore at a mine near Kendal. She also brought German miners to Derbyshire to introduce better methods.
Richardson, 1974
Admittedly this benefitted metal mining rather than coal, but some technical innovations benefitted all, e.g. the introduction of the use of gunpowder in mining by Germans, here, in 1638. He continues “many Saxon words are still used in British mining, such as stope, stull, sump, stamp, trommel” (Richardson, 1974).
A few other common words come from non-English sources: ‘corf ’ or ‘scope’ (basket) from Dutch, ‘kibble’ (bucket) from German, ‘damp’ (gas) from German, ‘shaft’ from Low German Schacht, etc.
Other words, as noted above, were adapted from every day, sometimes specifically agricultural, language. But the developing 16technology of mining led to the need for new words for new devices. ‘Tram’ is believed to derive from tram as a beam of wood, part of a wheelbarrow frame; ‘rolley’ from the verb ‘to roll’; ‘rope’ becomes applied to a steel cable. Other words evolved with the mine itself.
‘Hoggers’, originally footless stockings (so bits of coal couldn’t get stuck in the toes of them) switched to become the flannel drawers most miners chose to work in by the 1900s. Hogger (singular), a pipe or hosepipe, became the word for the pipe conducting compressed air to the ‘windy pick’ in use at the coalface.
This special or separate development applies also the way some ‘standard’ English words became used in the North East pits… ‘strike’ rather than go on strike, ‘buzzer’ for hooter or siren, ‘broken’ meaning worked- through rather than damaged, ‘dip’ for downhill, ‘hanger-on’ for the onsetter not a mere follower, ‘trapper’ for trapdoor operator rather than trap operator, ‘win’ in the sense of gain or access to coal, etc. Such clashes with conventional English are a particular delight.
Impact of modernisation
Since modernisation was introduced to the pits, during the course of the twentieth century, it might seem a standardisation of vocabulary would follow on. Changes, both as a result of new technology, and by way of discard of the ‘old’ did occur.
Main passages become ‘arterial roadways’ (Temple, 1994).
First shift – than fore shift.
Hose – than hogger for air pressure pipe.
Power-loaders or face men not hewers.
Roof supports – (usually powered) than props.
Surface – than on bank.
Shunters – not putters.
Take– “the area of coal allotted to a colliery after Nationalisation” (Temple, 1994).
With thanks to Steve Barnett, Seaham
Faceworker – in earlier days, a face worker could be defined as the man who worked at the coalface actually ‘hewing’ the 17coal, a ‘collier’. With the introduction of the ‘National Power Loading Agreement’ in 1966 a whole new group of workers came under the definition of ‘face workers’, e.g. ‘machine men’, ‘strikers’, ‘rippers’, ‘back rippers’, fitters and electricians, etc.
Harry Tootle, 1995
But some of the traditional vocabulary remained stubbornly in place in a changing world: canch for stone next the coal; bait (from the Old Norse for food) for the pitman’s meal underground. The principal roadway remained a ‘maingate’ (from Old Norse ‘gate’ for a road), the efficiently emptied space behind the coal-cutting operation was still the ‘goaf ’, signals were still ‘rapped’ up and down the shaft, though sent by electrical button; and so on. Where tradition and the worker’s imagination tended to fail was with modern equipment, which was generally known by its brand name, e.g. Dosco (road header), or Dowty prop.
One certain constancy was the pitman’s combination of physical toughness and quick practical intelligence, reflected in the need to understand and communicate the complexities of everyday work. As enduring has been a sense of humour: ranging from confrontation with the Devil in ‘The Pitman’s Rant’ of the eighteenth century, through terms like ‘foal’ (for the most junior of putters) and ‘cawdpies’ (cold pies, i.e. a disappointment, for any accident to the tram), both from the early nineteenth century, to casual inventions like ‘tomahawk’ for a tommy-hack (a combined hammer-and-chisel tool), from the cowboy-and-injun days of the 1960s; and ‘tadger’ for an electric drill. The heavy irony of the phrase ‘pitee aboot ye’, expressing absolutely no sympathy, belongs here too. If it could be a ruthless world, the pit, it was also a brave one; character and language alike have enduring appeal, and our respect.
At large
The apparent conservatism of Pitmatic, as mine talk, surely assisted the survival of dialect in the community at large. Though Pitmatic in the narrower sense is the talk of miners at work, a male dialect in effect, and the preserve of a working pitman, yet 18the importance of coal mining to the region and the consequent status of the miner was reflected in the status of dialect – articles in dialect were included in most issues of the Ashington CollieriesMagazinepublished between the wars, and in a number of radio programmes in the 1950s.
In terms of word preference and frequency, word survival and loss, word invention, the pitman seems to have taken the lead, and left his special mark on the region’s dialect. As a possible example, ‘brattice’ applied to a screen of canvas and the like, underground, to assist ventilation, from the early days of mining; in the collier’s home it became any makeshift partition: “Sometimes in mining areas where the kitchen was accessed directly from the street or backyard a partition or ‘bratticing’ was erected to give some shelter or privacy to the room” (Davidson, Ashington); “brattish / brattice – a rough wooden or curtained partition to separate a front or back door from living areas, behind which outdoor coats and boots could be kept out of sight” (Gillian Wilkinson, Coundon, 1950s). In other homes it became applied to the storage area under the stairs: “Under the braddish – under the stairs” (Phillips, Cullercoats). The word ‘brattice’ predates the pits, but its importance there arguably kept it familiar in domestic use. Similarly, ‘rammel’ may have passed through the transformation – ‘brushwood’, ‘pit refuse’, ‘general rubbish’. Many words common and useful in the pit context – fettle, chum, dunch, marra, tew – surely survived the more securely outside the pits as well.
Other phrases from the pits have permeated common talk (examples from Tom McGee of Sherburn Hill):
“you’re gettin yerself ahead of the buzzer” – getting above your station, being forward.
“gan canny ower the greaser,” meaning mind how you go. “The greaser in question being a mechanism between the rails that lubricated the tub wheels and if care wasn’t taken the tub could derail at this point” (Wheatley Hill).
“tak had” (take hold) as in steady yourself (in the cage) or use the handrail to take care of yourself.
“dropping off at the keps’’ – nodding, feeling tired. After a shift maybe. 19
Plus
“just ti thra a sprag in” – a spanner in the works (Darby, Seaham).
(Conversely, ‘gob’ from the outside world, seems sometimes to have replaced the more antique term ‘goaf ’.)
A remarkable example of Pitmatic meets Domestic occurs in Thomas Wilson’s Pitman’sPay, where a celebratory feast is described in terms of a hewer tackling coal (mining terms italicised):
Splash gan the spuins amang the kyell —
Di’el take the hindmost on they drive —
Through and through the bowl they wyell —
For raisins how they stretch and strive.
This ower, wi’ sharp and shinin’ geer
They now begin their narrow workin’,
Whilst others, eager for the beer,
Are busy the grey hen uncorkin’.
‘Tho’ still they’re i’ the hyel a’ hewin’,
Before they close the glorious day,
They jenkin a’ the pillars down,
And efter tyek the stooks away.
When Scott Dobson set about popularising ‘Geordie’ in the 1970s, it was the phrasing of pitmen he took as his central value, and his writing was more about the pit villages north of the Tyne than Tyneside itself (“It’snotowerfarfromBlythandit’shandyforMorpeth”). This reflects a reality we can all appreciate: the economic importance of coal influenced the attitude towards dialect of all the coalfield population, male and female, young and old, so that what we think of as North East dialect today has been largely coloured by the language experience of the coalfield. The mining population acted as a sort of filter, and through them the main features of the dialect – its lexis, grammar, intonation and not least its humour – were developed over recent centuries, to the ultimate gain of all.
Chapter 2
The pit-surface features
A coal mine
The variety of names for a ‘mine’ reflect the preferences of local industries and national legislators, and evolving fashions of popular parlance.
21Increasingly the standard words have become ‘mine’ and ‘miner’. ‘To mine’ derives from the French verb ‘miner’ (to dig or excavate), whence the noun ‘mine’ and the person ‘miner’; these were adopted in Middle English, and over the last century or so have gained in popular use to become the standard. The advantage, of course, is that they apply to the extraction of any mineral, not just coal.
Specific to coal, the formal term would be ‘colliery’, e.g. The Mines & Collieries Act, 1842, and the workmen ‘colliers’. ‘Colliery’ is a formation from ‘collier’, ultimately from OE cōl, of any burning substance, so ‘collier’ could also apply to a charcoal burner. However, the term came to seem increasingly old-fashioned, and unions, in the later nineteenth century, usually preferred ‘miners’ to ‘colliers’.
The extinct term ‘delf ’ derives from the OE verb ‘delf-an’ (to dig), and is noted in the Oxford English Dictionary as “the ordinary name for a quarry in the northern counties”. It relates to a time when mines and quarries would be surface excavations, ‘dug’ from above. Within the dialect period it is noted by Brockett as ‘pits out of which iron stone has been dug’ and by Heslop as ‘small pits’. The following quotation seems to confirm its role in relation to ironstone mines:
In several parts of the parish of Lanchester I have frequently observed that the surface of the earth is exceedingly irregular, with small pits, which the country people call delfs… these places are invariably attended with a stratum of iron stone not far from the surface.
Archaeologia Aeliana,1822
Yet another term is ‘groove’. While not impossibly from the ON gróf (a pit), it is in common use only from the seventeenth century and this suggests the influence of the Dutch word ‘groeve’. It occurs as standard in the Mendips and the Derbyshire lead mines. Two references to its use in the North East are early, from Stanhope and likely to refer to a lead mine: “one groove work in the Helmeford”, 1567; “Robert Rutter bur[ied]. He was hurt in a groove”, 1625 (Raine MS). It is also reported from Middleton in Teesdale in the twentieth century (Teward, 2003). A lead-miner 22was thus a ‘grover’ – “a miner who works in an adit level or a lead mine; greaver (three syllables) in West Tyne” (Heslop, N’d, 1880s); or a ‘groveman’ (Marske, 1735, Raine MS).
And so, to the regional standard, ‘pit’. In the 1890s Palgrave announced: “Pit. The only word in common talk for a mine. So, a miner is always ‘pitman’ or ‘pittie’, and pit dress is ‘pit-claes’”. Brockett likewise favoured ‘pitman’, and ‘pit crew’ is noted by Tootle (1995). ‘Pit’ descends directly from OE pytt, and is first noted in the combination ‘coll-pytt’ in a charter of Cnut, 1023 AD, of land in Hannington, Hants. Like ‘colliery’, ‘pit’ has fallen into disfavour.
A dismissive term for a small-scale operation is ‘tatie pit’. An early nickname for a pitman was ‘cranky’ (Brockett: “a cant name for a pitman”); more recently, ‘pit-yacker’.
Surface features
‘Bank’ is the common word for the surface level of the pit. In North East dialect ‘bank’ means hill or incline, but the use here seems to come from the phrase ‘at bank’ meaning ‘up above’ or ‘on top’, in contrast to the shaft bottom (“belaa, belaw – below, or in the pit”, Heslop, N’d, 1880s).
Thus: bank – “the top or mouth of a coal pit” (Bell MS); “on the banck or surface of the earth” (Compleat Collier, 1707); “aboveground; the surface” (Nicholson, 1888); “the colliery surface near the shaft and at the level from which the cages are loaded and unloaded” (Tootle, 1995); “To ‘work at bank’ is to do the colliery work above ground” (Palgrave, Hetton, 1896); “…one would usually refer to the immediate top of the shaft as the ‘surface’, and the place where the tubs were loaded and unloaded as bank. Although it was very rare to hear of anybody having a job ‘on the surface’. The more usual expression was that he had a job ‘on bank’” (Tony Sharkey).
Some related phrases are:
“are ye gawn to ride t’ Bank?” (Bell MS).
“the’ rapped the cage ter bank” (Hay, Ushaw Moor).
– an earlier version seems to have been – “drawn to the top, or to Day, as it is their phrase” (Compleat Collier, 1707).
23Pithead/heap
A number of terms are used to represent the area at the top of the shaft, as well as ‘bank’:
backsmith’s shop
banksman’s cabin
battery charging station – for charging the batteries, worn at the waist,
that powered the individual pitman’s cap lamp.
cabin – another name for the lamp room on the surface.
fitting shop
heapstead – “the elevated platform near the shaft above the surface upon which the tubs are landed and run to the screens” (Nicholson, 1888).
heapstead – “the head gear and buildings around the shaft area” (Temple, 1994); heapstead – “the entire surface works about a colliery shaft. Including the headgear, loading and screening plant, winding and pumping engines, etc. with their respective buildings” (Tootle, 1995); “heep – mine surface buildings” (Dodd, Tanfield Lea); “as the cage reaches the heap” (Darby, Seaham).
joiner’s shop – [Man leaving joiners’ shop – sawdust all ower the back of his heed – “Why Geordie” says the yardman, “Yer brain’s gorra leak, marra!” – thanks to Basil for that].
pit bank or pitheap – “the elevated stage around the top of the winding shaft upon which the tubs or mine-cars were delivered from the cages” (Tootle, 1995).
pithead – “the pithead usually had two stories” (Darby, Seaham).
pit-head – “complex comprising baths, time office, token room and lamp cabin” (Douglass, 1973).
(Pit)heap, in turn, comes to apply to the whole colliery at surface level, perhaps because ‘heap’ can imply a horizontal group as much as vertical pile (compare OE ‘on heap’ in a crowd). An alternative explanation is that the term became generalised from the expression the Coal heap (Compleat Collier, 1707), from a time when stocks of coal were piled up near the top of the shaft.
‘Plant’ is another useful word for all the buildings, cabins and store areas that comprised the pit – “the machinery and fittings around the colliery” (Tootle, 1995). First noted in 1789, the word reflects a sense of something newly developed or put in place.
The components, according to Harry Tootle’s dictionary, include:
24pump house – a building on the surface, or the place underground, where the main pumps for the colliery are situated.
token cabin – in modern terms, where the board was kept with numbered brass tokens relating to individual pitmen. His token would be issued to the pitman on going underground, to be returned when his shift was over. A quick means of keeping a check on anyone failing to return to bank [“Token-cabin – an office on the heapstead where the tokens are hung up by the tokenman on their respective nails according to number or name” (Nicholson, 1888)] and workmen’s cabin.
Michael Dodd (Tanfield Lea) adds:
pypyahd – for storing non-metallic pipes
stak-yahd – hay store for pit ponies.
timma yahd – in pit.
wy kabin – weigh cabin.
Steve Barnett, re Seaham Colliery:
baths – (with baths attendants).
canteen – (with female under manageress).
colliery office – here surveyors, who occasionally ventured underground… and coal sampler – checked specific gravity of coal.
control room – centre of communications – manned 24 hours.
lamp cabin and lamp cabin men.
medical centre – manned 24 hours.
planned maintenance staff – kept records of all underground machines – e.g. which scheduled for regular maintenance – would hand worksheets to overman.
time office
wages office and staff.
Norman Wilson, North Walbottle Colliery:
The pit yard also had a timber yard, and sawmill, and a system of rail track and sidings.
It had what was called a land-sale, where coal merchants came and filled and weighed their own coal sacks to supply the public. It had a large slagheap which burned continually; the heap was built up by use of an aerial flight, which was a cable-car system. There was also a small sewage farm.
25There was the main office, powder cabin well away in the timberyard, pithead baths, medical centre, canteen, lamp cabin, time office, weigh bridge, plumbers’ shop, cutters’ repair shop, electric shop, fitting shop, choppy house, joiners’ shop, stores, engine sheds, blacksmith’s shop and what we called the fire-holes – this was a shed along the end of the Lancashire boilers where the stoking was done.
In other words, there could be as many different structures or offices as there was any need for. Within the larger structures, there could be functional rooms, e.g. the locker room, where men preparing for work left their outdoor clothing. It was said that anyone turning up drunk for their shift would be hoisted on top of the lockers to sleep it off (or fall off!).
Transcript of document placed in small tin in the fabric of the Engine House at Dawdon Colliery in December 1935 and recovered upon its demolition.
This engine house was completed in November 1935. We are told that it will be in use for about 60 years. We are putting this note on the quarrels hoping it will be found and be of great interest to the finder. The following are the names of the persons mostly concerned with this work. Mr. F. Wilson (Manager), Mr. Jobling (Undermanager), Jack Winter (Master Shifter), Mr Wainwright (Engineer). W. Cooper, R. Johnson,
J. Robinson, J. Osmond, G. Dunn were the stonemen. Jacob Shaw (Shotfire Examiner), R. Davidson and J. Thompson (Bricklayers), A. Shepherd., A. Darwin (Labourers).
This eng[in]e is now about 6 year[s] old and has been in use at 1st. north. E.L.M. the cable from 1st. North old engine house to the new engine house was brought in bye on 6 reels to the bottom of the E.L.M. bank, then reeled off on to tubs and taken into position by the endless haulage. This is the first time that reels have been brought in bye at this colliery.
Other items of interest. Dawdon colliery is producing about 3500 tons per day at present. The new cleaning plant has been erected nearly 2 years. The C.A.I.[L] (coal bye-product plant) in Dene House Road, Seaham Harbour, has just started [production] on a small scale. The old houses 26at the north side of the town have just been demolished. The M.F.G.B. are trying for a rise of 2/- a day for adult miners. A general election is just over and E. Shinwell [Labour] has defeated J. Ramsay Mcdonald [Nat Labour] by over 2000[0] votes in this division. Wages. There is 65% on the base rates. Stonemen are averaging about 9/- per day. Subsistence wage is 6/6d. Minimum for adult coal Hewers about 7/- per day. All these include percentage.
Notes:
Quarrels – channels for wiring, etc.
E.L.M. – East Low Main
C.A.I.L. – In 1935 “A large industrial plant for the production of oil and spirit from coal opened near [Vane Temoest]” (McNee)
M.F.G.B. – Miners Federation of Great Britain Percentage – Bonus
As many as the buildings and offices were the many different workers. The list starts with examples from Dodd (Tanfield Lea):
lektrishun – electrician.
mekanik – colliery craftsman.
pikk shahpna – smith skilled in tempering steel.
pypman – installs and extends pipes in mine.
stawkeepa – in charge of mining supplies.
undastrappa – underling.
wagin filla – surface worker.
Plus:
electricians – “under separate surface foreman” (Barnett, Seaham).
fitters – “to deal with anything mechanical” (Barnett, Seaham).
runnin’ fitter – “a fitter’s deputy” (Wilson, G’head, 1820s).
saddler – “originally asociated with the gallowas’ reins and such… became the provider to knee pads and battery pouches and anything else made of canvas or conveyor belting” (Johnson, Dawdon).
wagonway-man – “a general handyman, an experienced miner, who had a vague authority over the boys in his district” (Hitchin, 1962); “in Durham 27the ‘doggie’ was the wagonwayman who repaired and looked after the haulage districts and roads; he was not really an official but more like the chargehand in the factory system. His name I believe came from the dog nails which he used in repairing the roads” (Douglass, 1973).
And even the humble yardman:
It was my name for a man that sweeps up and keeps the yard tidy. When coming off shift the hewers used to wind up (josh) the yard man (whose wages I believe was dependent on the tonnage hewn by the coalface men) indicating they had not taken much coal out that day and his wages therefore would be less.
Ivor Lee, Sunny Brow, circa 1910–25
In the nineteenth century, surface workers “had very low status in mining communities” (Benson, 1989), perhaps because “working at the pithead was undramatic”. Simple tasks like picking stone from coal was left to “boys and girls, women, craftsmen and ‘knocked-up’ hewers”. Nonetheless they constituted a fifth of a pit’s workforce in the late nineteenth century, and as longwall working was introduced there was an increasing role for the ‘mechanic’ and craftsman underground.
Important among surface workers would always be the blacksmith, who had his own forge, and much work to undertake for the pit (and for friends):
My recollection… is that the blacksmiths did not shoe the ponies. That was done by the horsekeepers. The blacksmiths played a major role in the operation of a colliery inasmuch as they built, repaired and maintained most of the steel structures used on the surface and underground and they also had prime resonsibility for the statutory periodical recapping of the winding ropes.
Tony Sharkey
As to women working in the pits, this was recorded in Gateshead in 1765, but they were no longer employed to work underground after about 1780 (Sir Timothy Eden, Durham, London, 1952). Women 28were legally excluded from work underground in 1842 (Benson, 1989). The increasing sense of the pit as a male preserve flourished thereafter, though a welcome role for women was preserved in pit office work and (latterly) in the canteen. Surface work accordingly was undertaken by older workers – shifters (paid by shift) or:
daytal men – (paid by daily tally) – “daytal workers – lower grade of pit workers, but not casual employees” (Barnett, Seaham); “‘datal’ workers… under the old grade system was the lowest and worst paid class of work, except for surface work” (Douglass, 1973).
– and their lot prior to the pensions system of the twentieth century was not enviable.
The washery
Washing refers to “coal dressing or coal cleaning in the widest sense” (HRCM, 1924). Basically, two processes are involved. Firstly, the separation of coal and stone and secondly, the grading of coal by sizes. Picking out stone was originally done by hand and called waling. This could be done on a revolving picking table, or later a moving canvas belt. More recently, rollers were brought in, to crush large coals, and break down lumps that comprised both shale and coal.
An innovation from about 1800 was grading the coal by passing it over screens with bars spaced at about a half inch apart. This was necessary as there was no market for very small sized coal before the mid nineteenth century. While the screen was immobile, picking and grading could be combined, but the introduction of a jigging screen in the mid nineteenth century required the separation of the processes.
Typical of the twentieth century was a purpose-built washery, a process borrowed from the metal ore industry. Because of varying specific gravity, coal will tend to float while heavier shale will settle. The standard became a fixed (adjustable) screen combined with water in motion. The bits of shale and other rock would settle to the base of the tank to be cleaned out and dumped; purer water above this could be recycled. The merchandable coal would be stored on site to be distributed by rail or road (in earlier times by ship from the Tyne and the Wear to London).
29Definitions:
