Wigan Album

Excellent poem that Ron, and so very true as my father was knackered, as he would say, through working in the pits. He too would say that at times it was very hot and sometimes with a streams of hot water making it like a sauna, and other times it could be freezing, he said this water just bubbled up or was there when breaking through the coal seam and they often could be working knee deep in water as it was being pumped out.

I'm wondering if this is the same man who once lived at Hindley and who wrote many poems about life in the pit and also dialect, I'm sure he had a booklet with poems published.

I've had an online search but can't find anything about the local pit poet, his poems would very often be in the Observer around the 1980s.
However here's a link to a brilliant local dialect poem that Ron also posted from his Wigan ephemera in 2020 by Joe Occleshaw,
https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=8&id=32096&gallery=DIALECT+POEM&offset=0#google_vignette

Cyril, if you are thinking of the Hindley man who wrote the book "Dust In My Throat" about life in the pits, that was John Farrimond. He was a caretaker at Hindley Grammar School when I was a pupil there.

Cyril, you've rung a bell with me there....there WAS a dialect poet in The Observer some years ago, but I can't recall his name. I do, however, remember someone called something like "Owd Scrat" who contributed to the letters page in dialect at one time, but I think it was when I was a child. It's a very vague memory and I may have got the name wrong.

Cyril, I think there was an "Owd Codger" too in The Observer.....it's coming back to me now. And "Cousins' Corner" which was a page for children.

Irene, thanks for the superb info, it's probably the book about miners by John Farrimond I was maybe thinking of, though a lot of miners were fond of poetry as was my father, and he too like others would have a go at writing poems, when there was no sports programmes on TV that is, I also once bought from the Weind Bookshop a small booklet of dialect poems by the owner of an hardware shop on Market St Hindley - I think the name was Mr Hull ? though that got taken to the Book Cycle.
Owd Scat or what his name was could well be the same dialect poet in the Observer I was thinking of, and you can't ask Geoff Shryhane as he must have got a typewriter and binned his computer, as he doesn't now reply to emails.

Here's a list of articles in the Past Forward magazines at Wigan & Leigh Archives at Wigan Buildings Preservation Trust, though not all the articles have links:
https://www.wiganlocalhistory.org/wigan-and-leigh-archives/pastforward-links-to-articles

It WAS Hull's hardware/iron monger's shop in Hindley but I had no idea Mr. Hull had written poetry. When I was at school in Hindley, (though I lived in Ince), it was a thriving shop, as were they all on Market Street. It's all vape shops, mobile phone shops and false nail shops now. I have a feeling that Geoff's computer packed in; I sent him a birthday card last month but haven't heard anything from him; however, we exchange Christmas Cards and usually drop each other a line in them so I'll ask him about Owd Scrat and Owd Codger. It will be December when I send the card but I won't forget. I used to love writing for Past Forward and wrote for it for a number of years.

I do remember your stories Irene, they were excellent and good for settling down to read with a mug of tea and a few biscuits and reminiscing of times gone by, superb.

The booklet of dialect poems only had a few pages, 6 or so, and I'm sure it said Mr Hull had written them for a local charity that he supported,
and it was when we were decorating that it and other books got mistakenly taken to the Book Cycle at Beech Hill.

A wonderful poem which brought back memories of my late father who alas suffered 100% of the pit death disease .