People's Collection

Ernie Cheeseman
Early life in South Moor. Street scenes, family home. Drift mine, coke works, chauldron wagons, farming. Father a horsekeeper. Hauler engine. Pit ponies, mining. Horse keeper duties. Children's games. Religious life in South moor. Baptism and primitive Methodism. The colliery. Yeddle dump. Spreading manure. Pit electricity. Colliery buzzer. Wesleyans liberal, primitives labour. Sweet shops, shoemakers, butchers. Wash day, ironing day, how it was done. Electrical and gas supply, candles. Four meals a day. Taking the shopping order for the week. Payday. Shifts and marras and tokens. Checkweighme...

Mr Gardiner
Worked at the Louisa new pit, as a data hand. Work underground. Accident in the pit. Work at Hedley Pit. 1921 and 1926 strikes. Work as a pipe fitter at Beamish Mary.

Mr Lees
Born in South Moor. Memories of Beamish Home Farm, thresher gangs etc. No Place. Father a coal miner. Work in Nigeria. National coal board in the 1950s. Civil defence. Work on Tyneside metro. Tunnelers. Cottages at Foulbridge, Beamish

Mr Lisle
Family, house in Cramlington. First job - delivery boy in a food shop, with a three-wheeled bicycle. Then worked as a miner in various collieries. Joined the Royal Air Force as a first aider. Went to the middle east in 1937, the western desert in 1940, and towards the end of world war two was in Belgium and Germany. After the war joined the Red Watch fire service

Mr Lisle
Joined county Durham fire service in 1942, aged 28. Organisation of fire service. Description of engines, uniform, stations. How fires put out, how they rescued people, first aid. Easington disaster, flooding at Morrison colliery pit, moorland fires, emergency calls from Consett steel works.

Mr Moran
From his autobiography "memoirs of an ordinary man", written in the third person. Birth, schooling. Mining accident. Joseph Batey, MP. "Cooling box", boiling water and steel. Trespassing on the railway, games and sweets. Dentist and doctor, clothes possing, poverty, food. General Strike .Health. Hare catching. Fish shop. Chimney demolition. Accidents. Convalescent home following mining troubles. Domestic services. Looking for work. Potato picking. Golf. Begging. Starting work as a miner. Bathing. Miner's institute. Pay and shifts. Journey to Brownie colliery, hard labour and industrial diseas...

Mr Lee
Story of the Twizell years. Pit community and village life. Childhood, winter, food, home life of a miner, toilets. Christmas, children's games, pit accidents. Starting work in the pit, working conditions, pit ponies. Brother died of wounds world war one. Clog dancing.

Calland and Garroway
Speaking in turn. Taking coals by sledge. Accident. Cycling in 1906, competitions and leisure. Boxing. Circus, performers and atmosphere. Billiards. Limitations of women's work, women content with their lot. Affection within families. Alcohol habits. Going into the pit in 1910. Working for the railways and then later as a cashier for Bainbridge's, Stockton. Mining accident, treatment, Dean and Chapter colliery. Flattening of old pit areas. Gambling at races. Gangs of gamblers and drinkers in the early twentieth century, general accepted. First motor vehicles. 1940s miners rope, used but now wo...

Mr Pratt
Risky work in mining, judging it, warnings of accidents. Process of mining, overtime and the fillers. Internal snobberies and hierarchy. Role of management, degree of demarcation between roles. The mining unions, those not joining (1930s), growth of unionism, leadership role. Detail of complaints procedure - meetings and votes, degree of interest in unionism. Relationships between unionism and working men's clubs. 1970s unionism. Family background. Ostracism of the conscientious objector, later acceptance. Active role as father and husband, unusual then, when women stayed in and men went out ...

listening post Frank Atkinson
Listening post at entrance to colliery yard

radio "the metro documentary"
"The metro documentary" on Beamish museum, wanders around and talks to various staff - Frank Atkinson, Sylvia Foster, a tram driver, Fred Welsh (miner), John Gall, Jean Raw on possing, Rosie Allen, visitors including an ex cartwright.

radio "wherever you are"
"Wherever you are" - Beamish staff briefly interviewed and then choose music - Keep your feet still Geordie Hinny, pipe music, Tommy Armstrong, also Cliff Richard, Don Williams, opera.

radio Houghton Colliery closure
Interviews following closure of Houghton Colliery, reactions, memories of pit village life

radio "the big meeting"
"Enquiry; the big meeting" - reminiscences on brass bands, pit work, church services, with brass band music

radio "pit boots and stotty cake - hard times"
"Pit boots and stotty cake: hard times" - life of the Durham pit folk between the wars - strikes, General strike, blacklegs, miners meetings, soup kitchens, poverty. With music - e.g. Blackleg miner, Durham lockout, The old man's song

radio "pit boots and stotty cake - women's work"
"Pit boots and stotty cake: women's work". Life of Durham pit folk between the wars - cleaning men's things, washing, baking, fieldwork, quilting. With music e.g. Bonny pit laddy, Washing day, Potpies and puddens

Mr Harrison
Started work at Lunehead barites mine in 1917. Walked six miles to work, they all stayed there all week and returned at weekends. Conditions of work, little chance for leisure but did sing. Lighting in the pit. Work washing and sorting, processing of barites. Problems with weather conditions. Pit ponies. Carts taking barites back, brake system. Women workers.

Mr Lightburn
Lead poisoning from water supply. Processing of barytes. Life of miners. Home made fireworks. Nearby army range. Dufton lead mine.

visitor presentation "how it was"
"How it was" - a history of the north east, from the bronze age on - audio part, once had visuals. History mining from early days, iron ore, growth of engineering. What is at Beamish.

coal mining interpretation
Coal mining interpretation - a scripted description of what it was like down the pit in 1914 when he started working there