Ushaw Moor Memories

In an earlier article I mentioned that my grandfather had beaten the French scout boxing champion in London in 1920. As a result of that he got a letter of congratulation from an African boy and the correspondence continued for sometime. In what turned out to be the African’s final letter he said that his mother had died and that he needed to finish the letter in order to go in to the forest to collect cocoa. My grandfather heard nothing more from him.

In the 1930s Bishop Auckland Football Club experienced problems with a referee in an important FA Amateur Cup Final against Wimbledon. The trouble was that the referee had chosen to wear a jacket that was similar in colour to the Bishops’ shirts and consequently the Bishops’ [including Jimmy Dodds from New Brancepeth] kept passing to him. They protested at half time and he changed his shirt. The game was drawn 0-0 but Bishop Auckland won the replay at Stamford Bridge.

In 1955 I watched Newcastle United play Manchester City in an FA Cup Final, courtesy of a gentleman’s television. He lived one down from Mr Pinkney so I suppose he probably lived at 40 Whitehouse Court. Can anyone tell me his name? I seem to remember that he had silver hair but I might be wrong about that. Newcastle won 3-1. Not everyone had a television at that time, even though there was a boom in sales of them that mainly stemmed from the popularity of the 1953 Coronation. Speaking of that I recall that the Daily Mail produced a special gold coloured edition of its newspaper to mark the Coronation – did anyone keep a copy of it?

In early June 1957 pupils of Ushaw Moor County School enjoyed a camping holiday based at Fencehouses. The weather was glorious but I cannot remember much more other than it was during our week there that Hughie Gallagher committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train. Hughie had much earlier been a very famous footballer for Newcastle United [and others] but he had been due in court the following day for alleged cruelty to his son. It was so very sad and it is not for any of us to make judgment about it. He had experienced a life that was a mixture of both triumph and tragedy.

Have you ever noticed little dark blue coloured chip marks that appear on some coal miner’s faces? They are not infrequent and are the result of coal chips embedding themselves during coal cutting.

In about 1957 a young boy called Bell [no relation to me] was specially selected to sing a solo in a Durham Cathedral Christmas service. I recall that a party of pupils from school, including me, attended. He did us proud. Does anyone know what happened to him after that?

In 1965 the Deerness Valley lost its railway. I suppose that the closing of some of its mines had heavily influenced that decision.

In 1971 there were complaints about the burning pit heaps at the old Ushaw Moor Colliery site. The colliery had closed in 1960 [despite apparently 5 million tons or so of remaining unmined coal]. It was generally felt that the National Coal Board was responsible for remedying the burning pit heap problem and that seems a reasonable assumption!