Mr Allott Smith

Father was a sinker, involved in sinking of Blackhall colliery in 1909, so he was there from the very start, describes the village growing up - getting a water supply, the first rows of houses, there were no roads into the village. When man had pit accident they stopped a train and put him in the guards van to go to Hartlepool. People banded together when anyone was ill. Children's games. Building of the first tin school, 1911, and first tin church. Many people lived in huts on the beach or in caves, he did too when first married. Playing football as a boy, obeying parents. Went into blacksmith's shop, soon doing man's work as men went away to world war one. Man killed on pit roof. As a child delivered coal and water for pennies. Walter Wilson's, the first shop, allowed to eat sweets, soon got sick of them. Watching the bombardment of Hartlepool. Tunnel as bomb shelter. Brother killed in the trenches, got medals. Before this he made long journey to be with man dying from pit accident. Process of sinking a pit. Farm shire horses, one went to work for sinkers and broke legs. Pit ponies. Poverty during the 1926 strike, even the doctors family in trouble. More on living in a beach hut. The vicar.

Location: Hartlepool, Blackhall
County: Teesside
AUD1983-221

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Transcript of audio:
The housing situation was bad and many people lived in huts on the beach and also in caves. Several children were born in the first big cave at Blackhall Rocks. Dr. Russell often recalls that one of his first confinement cases was in the caves at Blackhall Rocks. He had to boil the water in an old pan over a fire at the mouth of the cave and he had to quieten the children before he brought the child into the world.
"What about these people who lived in the caves, why did they live there?"
There were no houses.
(it was before the houses were built)
I was married on June 1st and I lived in a hut on the beach until September, October, and then I got two rooms in Heselden for half-a-crown a week.
(what sort of hut, one room)
Aye, there was just a little partition for the bedroom, it belonged to my wife's brother and we arranged to go in there, you see. If you waited and waited until you got a house, you would never have got married, you see, that was the trouble. People used to... I'd say there were about thirty or forty huts on the beach at the time, along at Blackhall Rocks where the road comes down the bank, down there, along the bottom there was a flat space. There was a little colony of us, there was a lot of children born down there in them little huts. Some huts were good, some weren't so good, some people lived in tents in the summer.

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