Whitwell Local History Site

Whitwell - A Parish History

Appendix Four

WHITWELL COLLIERY - RANDOM JOTTINGS

Some echoes from the coal seams left by the distillation of time:

'Datalers play', 'How much is your clock?' 'Half an hour and ten minutes fast', 'So long', 'Don't be late', 'Put the kettle in the oven for morning', 'Hurry up-the milk planes gone over', 'Don't lose your bonus - what would folks think?'. 'Take your tools and work up No 2 pit'.

Nationalisation: 'Everyone has a share in the NCB - I've sold mine', 'Get on't phone Hedley,' 'Get on't phone Len,' Modern mining', 'Coal at any price'. 'What are we stood for?'. 'There is a smash in the swilley', 'No tubs keep coming', 'Get to know', 'Big run on', 'Big hitters coming', 'Rabbits on the garden', 'Easy six', 'Bandsmen', 'Can't find a parting'.

Good Worker?: 'I dare let him hit me with a pick', 'He was two years looking for tools and kicking stemming up', 'He who hides can find', 'Bevin lad?' 'I've known him for years, I used to drive to his dad', 'There's an idiot on the phone - not on this end gaffer'.

Water: 'Only three barrels in the pit', 'Send a bantle of pipes" If it were beer, lads would have supped it by snaptime',

Walk: 'I've never walked so far on a bus', 'Tail gates under the Kremlin', 'The last war was over pinching Hitler's coal', 'Second class riding beats first class walking', 'Pay your own fines', 'Put your bike up at Sharpes'

Snaptime Score: 'Not half enough, "Fill for the count', 'Break your lumps up', 'No Queen Marys you will block the spiral', 'Pile em on Tom', 'Mice in fresh air packs'.

Popular songs: 'Sam's song', 'Bake a cake'- wonder why?

Continuous mining: 'Completed your bicycle', 'Who will wrestle the ghoul?'

Ponies: 'You take Pilot, I'll take Fly?'

Coronation Overcast: 'Built same year and cost as much', 'What are you doing? - Resting my eyes - Rest 'em one at a time in future'. 'Going for a drink tonight?', 'Get your feet in the trough', 'Put your tools on the rods lads - we'll mechanise', 'Glosters that did not get', 'Bigger the hammer, better the fitter', 'Hazel oil', 'Armstrong's patent', 'Fetch Monday'.

Electricians: 'They only get to sleep with a buzz under the pillow'.

More money: 'Noggitate', 'It will be the Canon next', 'The little bosses struck'.

Overtime: 'He spends more time underground than a King Edward'.

Sunday: 'Every tick is a tick-tock', 'He's like hoss muck- all over the pit', 'Goes down the pit twice a week; comes up once!'

Famous last words: 'Leave it - it will be OK', 'Short of steam, all stand on one leg', 'Let these men go, Ernest;', Bath in the yellows' (as the King said at one Wembley cup-final).

1989: 'No lumps to break up', 'Even the lump bobby has gone', 'Still it will not always be dark at six', 'There never were such times for the (non) working man'.

ALL THE FOXES AREN'T IN WHITWELL WOOD