What is it about Sheels

[malaymac]

that you think has seen the biggest change over recent years ? I use the term loosely, let's say over the last 30 or 40 years.

What area or working practices have seen changes with the most impact ? and very importantly,
What small changes, have had an impact on your own personal perspective ?
Sometimes, it's the small things which have the greatest impact.

Whether it's work, social life, your neighbours or local town planning, whatever, let's hear it.

I'm really interested to hear your views, thanks.

[Pilot]

Well I would say the shipyards and the coal mines closing are the biggest thing to happen to Shields over the last 30 or 40 years.
Little personal things!!!! I went from 20 to 60 that had quite a big impact

[shadowplay]

the shameless loss of architechture , im only 34 but i remmber the old buildings and archways down fowler ste=reet


im not re editing this post after noticing my typos , this jorman wine is strang the neet like

[Jarrow Pete]

Whitburn pit closing in 1968. I had followed my father in working there, it was known as a family pit with sons following their fathers to work there. I know for a fact I would have stayed to the end of my working days as it was a great place to work. But then again I would not have had the opportunity of travelling all over the UK and Europe working.

[malaymac]

Well I would say the shipyards and the coal mines closing are the biggest thing to happen to Shields over the last 30 or 40 years.
Little personal things!!!! I went from 20 to 60 that had quite a big impact

I agree, they are probably the biggest and most obvious changes.
May be it's because I'm not there everyday and only get back occassionally that I sometimes get caught out with road changes, old buildings coming down,
new ones going up, major local places of employment changing hands - things like that.

Which reminds me, how many different companies have occupied the old Plessey factory ? there must be a few.

Last year for the first time in about 30 years (maybe more) I drove down Park Avenue towards my old junior school - Cleadon Park.
Honestly, I had to stop the car, get out and look around. The place had changed so much.

Gone was Ashgrove Avenue and surrounding streets and new houses were being built.

Everything completely different, except that my old school was still there and jeeeeez, it all looked so small (like a kids lego building).

Has anyone been in a situation like that ? visited their old school ? could you get yer knees under the desks ?
I reckon that would be a very strange experience.

[malaymac]

Whitburn pit closing in 1968. I had followed my father in working there, it was known as a family pit with sons following their fathers to work there. I know for a fact I would have stayed to the end of my working days as it was a great place to work. But then again I would not have had the opportunity of travelling all over the UK and Europe working.

That's a good point Pete. There must be loads of blokes and a few ladies as well, who thought they had a job for life.
The writing was already on the wall when I finished my apprenticeship at Brigham & Cowans. When a lad had his 20th birthday and on paper anyway, completed his apprenticeship. That's it, yer out. No job available. Find something else.

I ended up at sea for a few years and almost everytime I came home on leave, I would hear about more and more shipping companies selling ships
or going foreign flag. So many lads were losing their jobs. Good lads too and well qualified for the position. Eventually, I realised it's a dead end.

So I left the tools and here I am, different job, different location, different environment entirely.

But I still have a soft spot for Sheels and the great people there. =D> =D>

[baldy.smith]

There is very, very little left of the Shields that I was raised in and knew well.
I feel I'm in a strange town when I go there now. But the Shields people have
not changed, still as hospitable as ever. I reckon the town is more about the
people living there; than the buildings in it.

[comeonthen]

Whitburn pit closing in 1968. I had followed my father in working there, it was known as a family pit with sons following their fathers to work there. I know for a fact I would have stayed to the end of my working days as it was a great place to work. But then again I would not have had the opportunity of travelling all over the UK and Europe working.

I had an uncle who worked at Whitburn pit and he told his sons that he would not like them to work there. My father was a miner and he told me that he would not like me to work down a pit. Mines were barbaric in the old days and had not changed much before they closed. Who wants to work underground all day and sometimes never see the sun for over a week. The grime and dust all day. The miners were proud men but their dignity went when they were bending over double with coughing and chest complaints. Men deserve a better way of living. All ex miners seem to look back with pride yet those that have different jobs would not go back. You don't have to automatically follow your father, make a better life for yourself.
comeonthen

[Jarrow Pete]

Miners were the the salt of the earth. What other job was there where you literaly put your life in your marras hands, friendships made down the pit lasted a lifetime. I went to Whitburn club twenty or so years after pit closed and if I had wanted to need never have paid for a drink all night from friends who I had worked with. I do not regret my time one minute and if my two sons had the chance of learning a trade with the coal board I would have encouraged them to do it.
I only left the industry after Whitburn closed and I was sent to Westoe, I stuck it there for two years but there you were just a number and not an individual like at the smaller pits.

[Barney]

My uncle was killed down Whitburn Pit, albeit in the 1930's!

I used to play at Harton Colliery while they were demolishing it.
I remember one particular day, I stood on the edge of a shaft that was in a smaller building just outside the pit baths.
The blackness oozed out of that hole, blotting out the daylight behind me from the open door.
The place smelled of coaldust, and the one tiny window at the top of the wall was almost totally blacked out by the dust covering it.

I threw a stone down that shaft, but never heard it land.

I could never have worked down the mines, and have a great deal of respect for those who did.

[Jarrow Pete]

My uncle was killed down Whitburn Pit, albeit in the 1930's!

I used to play at Harton Colliery while they were demolishing it.
I remember one particular day, I stood on the edge of a shaft that was in a smaller building just outside the pit baths.
The blackness oozed out of that hole, blotting out the daylight behind me from the open door.
The place smelled of coaldust, and the one tiny window at the top of the wall was almost totally blacked out by the dust covering it.

I threw a stone down that shaft, but never heard it land.

I could never have worked down the mines, and have a great deal of respect for those who did.

Barney go on the Durham miners web site and they have a list of most of the miners who were killed at Whitburn and all the other pits in Durham

[Barney]

Hi Pete;

thanks. I've been on the Durham Mining Museum site many a time. I love reading up on the history, and trying to find out if anyone knows anything about that smaller shaft at Harton.

I've found my uncle's listing a few times : Jopling, W., 28 Mar 1933, aged 16, Datal, crushed by tubs

He was my nana's brother, and was seven years younger than her. She passed away on the 27th January this year, in her 98th year. Almost made the ton.
She told us how Willy was working down the mine with their father, my great granda.
The top of his head was decapitated by a tub, and my great granda held him in his arms until he passed away.

[cushy butterfield]

Malyamac I know what you mean about everything looking different. This is the first time I have been back for a good visit for 26 years. I was so shocked at the changes, some good, some bad. I think you keep your memories of how it was and dont think its going to change and then very surprised when it looks the same and then yet so small and different. I dont know if its because of where I live now in Canada where we have huge open spaces, the roads are wider etc. course not so gridlocked with traffic and less people too, if that makes a differnce. I just know one thing that has not changed the people are still the salt of the earth and friendly

[Jarrow Pete]

Hi Pete;

thanks. I've been on the Durham Mining Museum site many a time. I love reading up on the history, and trying to find out if anyone knows anything about that smaller shaft at Harton.

I've found my uncle's listing a few times : Jopling, W., 28 Mar 1933, aged 16, Datal, crushed by tubs

He was my nana's brother, and was seven years younger than her. She passed away on the 27th January this year, in her 98th year. Almost made the ton.
She told us how Willy was working down the mine with their father, my great granda.
The top of his head was decapitated by a tub, and my great granda held him in his arms until he passed away.

If there was any pits still open around here Health and safety would have a field day. We had a coal face at Whitburn in the East yard seam, it took you over an hour to walk to it from shaft bottom, roadway was only a couple of inches higher than a tub, you had to walk bent double. The coal tubs were pulled out by a main and tail 375hp haulage engine, the main rope pulled out 20 tubs at a time, while the tail rope pulled the chum (empty) ones in bye. If no management were about you used to ride the tubs, coming out bye with full tubs you used to have to hang on rear of last tub, keeping your head below tub height or you would get decapitated. Going inbye you could get inside an empty tub, usually two of you to a tub. My late father who used to train the apprentice electricians got in a tub one day with a young apprentice and halfway out to the face the set came of the rails, fortunately the tub stayed upright, but they were trapped until help came to move the set to a landing where the height would allow them to climb out. Normally things like that where not reported, but the young apprentice suffered shock and had to be taken to the surface, my father ended up getting fined £10 off the manager which was half a weeks wage in them days.

[jimmywizz]

i went down westoe pit as a school kid, what a horrible place, what shocked me was the wind that was blasting down the tunnells, i think that the miners should have been paid double for doing the job they used to

[malaymac]

i went down westoe pit as a school kid, what a horrible place, what shocked me was the wind that was blasting down the tunnells, i think that the miners should have been paid double for doing the job they used to

I did the same sort of school trip and was quite shocked how far down in the cage, and then out to the coal face it was.

[captain beefheart]

We had a trip down Harton pit when i was at school, my memories are of the huge cavern painted white where the pit ponies lived underground, or did i imagine this, any old Harton miners please confirm.

[Delilahcat]

I went down the pit at Harton with the Science Club at school. Would be about 1959. Can't remember much about it other than I was glad I wouldn't have to work down there.
My grandmother's family worked at Whitbirn pit. They were called Sharp - a well known local family in Whitburn.

[comeonthen]

Everybody seems to agree that the pits were an awul place to work in. My dad used to come home covered in blue scars from roof falls. He worked at the face on his hands and knees and was in the pits from fourteen years old until his 40s when he went to sea. He never reminisced about the good old matey days at the pit, his words were always that the mines should all be blown up out of existence and that they were the closet thing to hell that you could wish for. Who are these miners that long for the good old days, let them explain what was good about going down a mine and I will show you an idiot.
comeonthen

[drwho]

I would like to add to this post i agree with all of what has been said my father worked at boldon colliery pit and died at the age of 52 .But i believe family life has suffered because of every day shoping my wife myself and our three young children used to go fore long walks on Sundays along the coast and parks of S/S while coming back along window shoping whitch i'm afraid isn't possible any more with all the shops with steel shutters.
PS not many good shops left is there ?.