Taking a Tip Gracefully (Memories of a bevan boy)

This story was submitted to the People’s war site by Gail Mason from Three Counties Action on behalf of William Cross, and added to the site with his permission. Mr Cross fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

The day the war broke out, I remember seeing my Mother cry for the first time, she was cutting beans in the kitchen. I was about 17 at the time, I was living at home, for the first year, nothing much happened. I got deferment for 2 years, the war in Europe had finished, and then I either had to go to the war and fight the Japanese, or down the mines. I chose the mines and became a Bevan Boy.

The pit village was Westerhope, 5 miles outside Newcastle, I remember the woman in the canteen, did I tell you about Mrs Tebb the cook? There was a half door (stable door) to the kitchen, and when the door was open I would be beckoned forward and given a meat pie. I could see how she looked at me, a teenage boy away from home.

Down the mines there were two lines (tracks) stone went out on one, there was a long dark cavern, coal went out on the other line, miners put their tickets on the coal to get extra pay. On my second day, I managed to derail the coal truck, sent for assistance, and the man came expecting some disaster. “Christ, man, what have you done, get your bloody arse under it”. I then had to heave the truck back on to the rails.

The women lived totally without men. Dossie (Dorothy) and Edith, spinster sisters on a respectable council estate, landed with 3 Bevan boys. My final landlady, Lily, her husband in the war, she was about 31, and I remember the first evening I was there I looked at her bookcase, full of Barbara Cartland.

In a pit village you’d have get togethers all the time, you’d go up the path, piano banging away, Spam sandwiches.

In my life I’ve rarely been embarrassed, I used to deliver coal to a ‘pit widow’, I went into this dark room, everything shone, the widow gave us tea and fairy cakes, when I went to leave, she gave me 6d (sixpence). I said ‘no’, I couldn’t, ‘she flushed, and I realised that she thought I couldn’t accept money from someone of a ‘lower station’. I am still embarrassed about that.

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