Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, Monday 8th September 1947.
35, 000 miners are still idle.
The number of miners on strike this morning was approximately 35,000 - a quarter of Yorkshire's mine labour force. Thirty-one pits were affected by the strike - 19 were completely idle and 12 partly affected. Thirteen pits previously affected by strike are now working normally. Three others who had been on strike are on annual holiday. The Grimethorpe men have refused appeal after appeal and rejected move after move to go back, holding that it was the Coal Board that must give ground. Yesterday they refused again when asked to allow three of their own union men to visit the pit and judge the practicability or otherwise of the extra stint.
Grimethorpe miners are talking about a long strike. They are using the miners' superstition about bringing pit ponies out of the pits as the omen for their calculations. [...]
Showing posts with label Yorkshire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yorkshire. Show all posts
Friday, 10 January 2020
Kissing your wife
Leeds Mercury, Tuesday 5th April 1932.
Miners' Superstition.
Unlucky not to kiss wife on going to work.
That his wife had left him because he did not kiss her good-bye was stated by Angus Jenkinson, miner, Downs View Avenue, Deal, when summoned at Sheffield, yesterday, for neglecting her. He added: "She told me her father had said it would be unlucky for a miner not to kiss his wife good-bye before going to work."
It was stated the woman had been certified insane and was in a mental institution. The hearing was adjourned sine die on condition that Jenkinson paid 30s. for his wife's maintenance and repayment of relief.
Miners' Superstition.
Unlucky not to kiss wife on going to work.
That his wife had left him because he did not kiss her good-bye was stated by Angus Jenkinson, miner, Downs View Avenue, Deal, when summoned at Sheffield, yesterday, for neglecting her. He added: "She told me her father had said it would be unlucky for a miner not to kiss his wife good-bye before going to work."
It was stated the woman had been certified insane and was in a mental institution. The hearing was adjourned sine die on condition that Jenkinson paid 30s. for his wife's maintenance and repayment of relief.
Conisborough, South Yorkshire 1912.
Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Monday 15th July 1912.
Miners' Superstition.
Will not descend while corpses are in the pit.
Conisborough, Saturday.
The miners here seem very divided as to when they will resume work in the pit which was the scene of the disaster. It has been officially stated that the pit is now quite safe, and that there is no reason why it should not be re-opened on Monday, but many of the miners shrug their shoulders and mutter a gruff negative when asked if they will descend on that day.
"You don't catch me going down while there's dead men lying there," said one grey-headed hewer of coal. "It fetches your heart up into your throat to go down into a pit when there's dead men lying just a little way off you in the darkness."
This was the view of many men. The Yorkshire miner is not nearly so superstitious as his Welsh brother, but he has a rooted objection to entering a pit where corpses lie. There is another and more material consideration. If the men are out till Tuesday there will be a week's Union pay to draw, and this is a fact which will carry some weight with the Union men, who comprise about half the miners in the Cadeby district.
Mr. Chambers, the managing director, was down the pit again this morning, and found all the seals on the wall intact. Very little air has escaped, and what has come out is non-explosive, which matters point to the fact that the measures for dealing with the gob fire have been satisfactory. But the miners mean to take no risks. "We shall certainly not go down," said one man, "until we have it from the Government Inspector that all danger has disappeared. The mine has been hot for a long time, and until the gob fire has been completely put out we shall not run the risk attendant on resuming work."
All through the night men have been working at the huge fall of roof beneath which probably most of the rescue party lie, but as yet only one more body has been recovered. It is that of Charles Prince, assistant deputy, an unmarried man, who lived at the Glen, Mexborough. Prince was master of the Danaby and Cadeby Troop of Boy Scouts, which has only been in existence for a few weeks. He was taking part in the celebrations at Wentworth when the disaster happened, and he hurried to the pit still wearing his scoutmaster's uniform. The rescue party were crowding into the pit. There was no time to change into pit clothes. He left his jacket in the lamp-room, and went down to his death clad in the Baden-Powell clothing which he had worn under such happy circumstances only an hour or two before.
It is the general opinion that the other bodies lie under another part of the fall, which will not be accessible until the seals for the destruction of the gob fire have been removed, in which case a week or more may elapse before they can be reached. [...]
Miners' Superstition.
Will not descend while corpses are in the pit.
Conisborough, Saturday.
The miners here seem very divided as to when they will resume work in the pit which was the scene of the disaster. It has been officially stated that the pit is now quite safe, and that there is no reason why it should not be re-opened on Monday, but many of the miners shrug their shoulders and mutter a gruff negative when asked if they will descend on that day.
"You don't catch me going down while there's dead men lying there," said one grey-headed hewer of coal. "It fetches your heart up into your throat to go down into a pit when there's dead men lying just a little way off you in the darkness."
This was the view of many men. The Yorkshire miner is not nearly so superstitious as his Welsh brother, but he has a rooted objection to entering a pit where corpses lie. There is another and more material consideration. If the men are out till Tuesday there will be a week's Union pay to draw, and this is a fact which will carry some weight with the Union men, who comprise about half the miners in the Cadeby district.
Mr. Chambers, the managing director, was down the pit again this morning, and found all the seals on the wall intact. Very little air has escaped, and what has come out is non-explosive, which matters point to the fact that the measures for dealing with the gob fire have been satisfactory. But the miners mean to take no risks. "We shall certainly not go down," said one man, "until we have it from the Government Inspector that all danger has disappeared. The mine has been hot for a long time, and until the gob fire has been completely put out we shall not run the risk attendant on resuming work."
All through the night men have been working at the huge fall of roof beneath which probably most of the rescue party lie, but as yet only one more body has been recovered. It is that of Charles Prince, assistant deputy, an unmarried man, who lived at the Glen, Mexborough. Prince was master of the Danaby and Cadeby Troop of Boy Scouts, which has only been in existence for a few weeks. He was taking part in the celebrations at Wentworth when the disaster happened, and he hurried to the pit still wearing his scoutmaster's uniform. The rescue party were crowding into the pit. There was no time to change into pit clothes. He left his jacket in the lamp-room, and went down to his death clad in the Baden-Powell clothing which he had worn under such happy circumstances only an hour or two before.
It is the general opinion that the other bodies lie under another part of the fall, which will not be accessible until the seals for the destruction of the gob fire have been removed, in which case a week or more may elapse before they can be reached. [...]
Saturday, 21 January 2017
Nationalisation, 1947
The State mines made a bad start to-day, when, ignoring all appeals, 84,000 Yorkshire miners, representing about 60 per cent. of the total labour force of the pits in the county, stayed away from work. New Year's Day is a statutory holiday for miners, but because of the grave coal shortage, with its threat of large-scale unemployment in industry, appeals had been made to the miners to defer the holiday.
[...] National Coal Board leaders are bitterly disappointed by the absenteeism figures on the very day on which the mines were transferred to the State. The chairman of the Coal Board's North-Eastern Division (Major General Sir Noel G. Holmes) told me to-day: "I am very disappointed at to-day's attendance figures at the pits and I am sure my Board is too. I believe Yorkshire miners are superstitious about working on New Year's Day."
[...]
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 2nd January 1947.
[...] National Coal Board leaders are bitterly disappointed by the absenteeism figures on the very day on which the mines were transferred to the State. The chairman of the Coal Board's North-Eastern Division (Major General Sir Noel G. Holmes) told me to-day: "I am very disappointed at to-day's attendance figures at the pits and I am sure my Board is too. I believe Yorkshire miners are superstitious about working on New Year's Day."
[...]
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 2nd January 1947.
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