Parkside Memories, 1959 to 1989
Characters Working Underground
We had our share of characters at Parkside, as was the case at most pits. To name just a few. Jack Ellis, aka "Iron Jack". Jack had been a farm labourer before the war, and had been pressed into the mines as a "Bevin Boy". He originally came from Dorset, but had married and settled down in St Helens. He was given to yarning and I think that in a lot of cases he believed his own stories. He told us once about cutting cabbages on a farm in Dorset. The farmer had told Jack that he wanted this particular field cutting, so Jack set to work. He said that he cut the entire field by 10.00am and had gone back to the farmhouse. The farmer, seeing him, asked whether he had come in for a warm, but Jack said that he had come for the wagon to load the cabbages. The farmer was astounded to think that Jack had done a whole day's work in three hours!
Another time, underground, an AFC had to be pieced up underneath, but it all was submerged in water. Jack said, "I'll do it "and with no more ado, plunged under the water and pieced it up!! Jack never wore his false teeth, and used to chew tobacco. It was amazing to watch his jaws going as he worked the tobacco to extract the juice. He never had his shirt fastened up; always open to the waist, whatever the weather. We even had a Union meeting once at a labour club where everyone turned up dressed for a night out, except Jack, who came as always, shirt open to the waist!
Jackie Platt was another. Jack was in the rescue brigade, and always wore his green rescue helmet to work. Jack was bald and wore a wig, but only on the surface. When he was going down pit, he would take it off and hang it in his locker. It looked for all the world like a dead cat!! One day, another joker by the name of Terry Crook, brought his wife's wig to work, and putting it on, said to Platty, "Ah'll go deawn i'mine if tha'll go deawn i'thine." The baths were in an uproar!
Terry Crook was also known as "doggy" Apparently this came about from the days when Terry was doing his deputy's training. He was at one of the Wigan pits and as he went around with another deputy, the men would say, "Here comes Jack with his little dog" and the name stuck. Mick Connelly, another joker had a dog collar made for him with his check number embossed on a tally and fixed to the collar!
I recall a time in the baths once, when some clowning around was taking place, and Terry picked up a pair of Bill Peet's socks, which Bill had brought into the showers to wash through, threw them towards the extractor fan, and they went straight through the blades and outside! Bill was dumbfounded, he couldn't speak!
It was Terry who first christened Mick Connelly "Gangster" This coming from the fact that Mick, in his spare time, was a doorman at the "King of Clubs," a nightclub in King St, Wigan. Jackie Atherton who was a pretty good poet, made up a poem about this, and it can be found, along with some others, in the book, "Parkside story".
Jack Platt's mate at the pit was Dickie Pilkington or Pilk, as he was better known. They used to reckon that Dickie was the oldest teenager at Parkside. He used to dye his hair, which he wore long, he also had a 'tache which also had to be dyed to disguise the grey hair! At times in the baths, we have seen black dye running down his back, mingling with the coal dust.
Another "Wig Man" was Kenny Walker, from Orrell. Tim Atherton told the story of when he and Ken had gone on a fishing trip. They had both been put in the same bedroom and when Ken had got ready for bed, he had removed his wig and his front teeth, causing Tim to exclaim "Ah've come t'bed wi' mi' son an' ah'm gooin get up wi' mi feyther".
One day, Jack Platt was short of coal at home, so he decided to take some from the pit. We were on the back shift at weekend so Jack got all of the men that were working with him to fill a sandbag each, and to carry it out for him. As they were walking along with Jack leading up, it looked for all the world like one of the old-fashioned safaris in Africa! When he loaded it into the car, the back end was so low that he had a problem with the steering.
Another man who wanted some fuel was Billy Hill. Billy, who lived in Poolstock, was filling some sacks with coke, when the mobile security man caught him. He told Billy to put the coke back and nothing more would be said about it, but Billy was adamant that he was taking it home. He loaded it into his car and had got to the bottom of the road, when the police, who had been alerted by the security man, stopped him. It cost Billy a £200 fine, a weeks pay, and a severe telling off in the "Top Shunt" as the general manager's office was known. And he didn't get the coke!!
One incident occurred that is worth relating, it happened one holiday time. I was on the night shift, doing the inspection shift on L19 face. I had just arrived at the pit, when there was a lot of activity, men running about, I said, "What's up?" Les Marsh, who was in the control room that week, said that someone had been seen trying to remove a pair of spotlamps from his car.
The car was parked in front of the big windows where the entrance to the baths was. Les had left the control room to visit the toilet when he had seen this figure of a man, through the obscured glass, trying to take the lamps. Les had shouted at him, and had run down the stairs to give chase, but the man had disappeared into the darkness.
Just then, my traveller, whose name was Joe, appeared and said, "what's wrong?" We told him what had happened and he said that he had seen someone run round the back of the baths building. By this time, Les had alerted the Police, who came to investigate. Joe, in the meantime had gone round the back of the baths himself, and had come back to say that his car had been interfered with. We went to look, and there was some broken glass from a car light jammed in the door seal.
Anyway, we went underground and carried on with our inspections, leaving the police to sort it out. It must have been about 3.30am when the phone rang at the top of L40 return, where we were at that time. Joe was flat out on the ground, asleep, and Les, who was on the phone, said to me," Can your traveller hear our conversation?" I told him that Joe was asleep, and he said that the police wanted to interview him about the attempted theft.
Apparently, the lamps had turned up in the toilets attached to the baths, so they suspected an inside job. I wakened Joe and told him that the police wanted to see him about the damage to his car, and I sent him up the pit. When he got to the surface, he confessed it all to the police, Jim Wormwell, the deputy manager, gave him the chance to leave voluntarily, or be sacked. Joe chose to go quietly.
A Change of Direction
Coming back to work after the accident to my thumb in the L19 top road, I was giving a lot of thought to Joe Sockett's job as Materials officer. Joe had been off work for quite a while with various complaints, and had decided, more or less to quit. Sid Hichisson had been filling in for him, but he was required underground again. I had been back a couple of months, when something happened to give me the push that I needed.
I remember the day quite well, St George's Day, 1981. It was a Sunday and I was cutting some wood in the shed at home. The circular saw that I bought was a hand held one and I was attempting to secure it in the vice. As I was cutting the wood, it slipped and the blade gashed my finger. It needed 6 stitches.
As I had only just had 9 weeks off a couple of months previously, I didn't want any more time off. I went in to see Jim Wormwell, the deputy manager and asked him if he could find me some work on the surface, and he told me to go into the stores and do Joe's job while he was off. This suited my purpose well and I started in the stores that same week.
When I arrived for work on that first day, Joe Parry a mechanical engineer, who was a union rep for COSA, said that he wasn't having NACODS in a COSA job. I pacified him by saying that if I got the job permanently; I would be transferring to COSA anyway. Ted Smith was in charge of the stores at the time, as Norman Parr had just left on retirement. Ted was only a stand in until a new appointment could be made. It wasn't long after this that John Rogers was made storekeeper. John had been the storekeeper at Golborne colliery, so this was a promotion for him, Parkside being a much bigger unit.
John Croston was the stores issuer, and had been since the stores were built in the 60's. I worked closely with him at the beginning of my appointment, as he knew all the ins and outs of everything, John had little stashes of all sorts of stuff in the lockers, so that, if an undermanager wanted something that was supposedly out of stock, John would have a rummage round and find some for him.
Joe Gennor, the safety officer had filled in for Joe Sockett after Little Sid had gone back underground, and it was with him that I began the job. Joe initiated me into the mysteries of the pink order forms known as "167s", these were in triplicate and had to be filled in with things like "vocab numbers" and "stock units", as well as the description of the article required. When I had been a supplies deputy in the 60s, I hadn't had any dealings with this side of the job. All I had to do then was see to the stuff being loaded and making sure that it got down the shaft.
Joe Sockett had left a book with a lot of numbers and descriptions in it, but to me at that time it was all "double Dutch". Gradually, the job came together, I didn't like asking Ted Smith too much, because Ted was a very irascible fellow, really abrupt, and couldn't suffer fools easily. I found out later that Ted had applied for the job as storekeeper but had been turned down, mainly because of a disagreement over something with Jim Wormwell, the deputy manager, who had said at the time "He'll get the job over my dead body" or words to that effect!
When I started in the stores, they had only just got away from writing all the stock and their corresponding vocabulary numbers in big ledgers, of which there was a pile, gathering dust on one of the shelves. We had a viewer, a sort of microfiche equipped with a tape that was updated from Staffordshire House computer dept. every month. This contained all the material and corresponding nos. that the then NCB carried in various stores and depots all over the country. It was like looking through a maze, as far as I was concerned. The vocab nos. were in a sequence of 12 digits, get one wrong and the wrong stuff was delivered. It happened to me more than once!
We also had a Kalamazoo system of flat files that were used for most of the repetitive stuff like timber and stonedust etc.
I had to see the various undermanagers first thing every morning to get their orders from them. They all had an order book in which they would write down their daily requirements; we then would take the books to the stores and put the materials down on the sheet for the yard. This was given to the yard foreman, who was at that time Gordon Robinson. Gordon had been a banksman when I last worked at Parkside in the 60s, and had been given the foreman's job when the previous one had retired.
There was always a bit of "needle" between him and me, because when I was a deputy in the 60s he was under me, and now, he always wanted to show his authority. Consequently, we were always at loggerheads. "Don't tell ma lads what to do, if tha wants owt at aw, come and see me," was his attitude, which was easier said than done, as he never could be found when needed.
It was about this time that we had a change of management, Bert Dyer, who was general manager, left to go to Victoria colliery in the Midlands. He was only going to wind it down and then to close it, then he was to retire. Frank Reid, who was at Golborne Colliery, was promoted and started at Parkside. Frank had been at Parkside in the 60s, when I was a deputy there. He was a management trainee then, and after I had left to take over the shop, he started to climb the management ladder. While he was at Golborne, he had been in charge when the explosion and fire had occurred in 1979. I recall Bert Dyer praising his actions at the time, and saying that Frank had done everything right and to the book.
Ken Horne or "Mr. Pastry" as he was known as, due to his white 'tache and glasses, which made him look like the character played on TV, was the Assistant Manager (mining). It was up to him how much money was available for supplies. When we were over budget, he would clamp down on orders. I remember that at one time he had a whole pile of pink slips lying in a drawer, waiting to be countersigned.
Wilf Shaw was the cost clerk when I started. Wilf had been an ex Park Collieries employee, and had transferred when that pit shut down. He was crippled in one of his legs, I didn't know the cause, it could have been an accident or he could have been born with it. Wilf used to use an old fashioned comptometer to add up with, I never saw him use a calculator. He took his retirement soon after Frank Reid started, but he never got the chance to enjoy it. The poor fellow died of a cancer only a couple of months after finishing work, in fact he was still owed rest days.
Trevor Jackson was brought to Parkside from Golborne by Frank Reid to take Wilf's place as cost clerk, and he was a wizard with figures. Trevor could pull money out of thin air like a magician!! He would "borrow" money from one project and give to another and then borrow it back as he needed it.
I'd been on the job for about 18 months when all the problems with Gordon Robinson came to a head. I was having trouble finding him whenever I wanted anything pushed along, and I was taking a lot of flack from the undermanagers because of shortage of supplies underground. One day, Jim Wormwell sent for me, and said "Ask Ron Silver to put an advert out for a Supplies Officer" Of course, I said "what's the problem?" and he told me that if I couldn't get my act together, then he would have to replace me. We had a heated exchange of views with the result that Gordon was told to co-operate with me and make life easier all round.
I needed flexibility in my approach to the lads on the yard and this I got. We had an afternoon shift installed with Frank Lyon in charge of it, and this shift carried on when the dayshift had finished. At that time we had two forklift trucks operating on the compound, with Frank Higham and Peter Fahey driving them. These trucks were really designed for factory work and were all right on concrete but when driven anywhere unevenly they had a lot of problems. We tried to keep one for loading and one for unloading, but it didn't always work out like that.
One of the biggest drawbacks was the shortage of loadbinders, which were needed to secure stuff like arches to the trams. We could never get enough returned to the surface by the underground men. I finally solved this problem by loading everything and leaving it on the yard, then contacting the various undermanagers and pointing out that the material was loaded, but required binding on. This produced the desired effect and soon there were posses of men being sent up pit with bags full of binders to secure the loads.
Not long after my contretemps with Jim Wormwell, Jim met with a near fatal accident. He was driving to work one morning with his daughter by his side. He was on the road near Bold Colliery when a front loading shovel travelling in the opposite direction came into collision with his car. The bucket on the front end of the loader wasn't in the upright position as it should have been; in fact it was on a level with the car windscreen. It ploughed into the screen hitting Jim in the head, and making a hole in his skull. It was touch and go for over a week, as to whether he survived or not. He never made a full recovery and was left with a flat spot on his forehead where the bone was missing. He also suffered fits for the rest of his life, which ended at the early age of 58, in 1995.
Gerald Eaves was sent to do Jim's job. Gerald had been at Parkside during the early 70s, but had been moved to Golborne as assistant manager. Gerald wore a beard and had the annoying habit of twisting the hairs together as he was speaking to you.
We got on quite well, and as John Rogers had told me, Gerald understood the stores system a lot better than most of the management team.
Frank Reid hadn't been at Parkside long when matters came to a head over supply vehicles. We were told on the yard to hold off any vehicle that was faulty i.e. broken safety catches etc. Gordon Robinson's brother, Jack, and Joe Gormally were supposed to be in charge of repairing vehicles, but I have to say this, I have never seen a more lazy pair of men! If they repaired one vehicle per week they had done well. They used to repair them in the main line loco shed, and there was always a pile of trams etc. waiting to be repaired.
When we did as we were told and held off the faulty ones, we must have stacked up over 50 trams. We couldn't get enough to load supplies, and when Frank got to know, he sent for Bill Bullen, who was Colliery Engineer, and told him the pit was stopped. We finished up getting outside contractors in to do the job, and their rate of work really showed up the other two.
Continued...