Joe Chaplin interviewed by Jo Bath

Oral history interview with Joe Chaplin conducted and recorded by Jo Bath in 2004, as part of the Time Tracks oral history collecting initiative. Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes. Born in 1923 in Binchester, move to Shildon at age 5, parents from Shildon; father’s occupations, electrician, Shildon colliery, electricity and mines, difficult to find work, father moving for work; having a big family [00:05:10] 1929 father worked as electrician at Dean and Chapter colliery, move to wooden fronted colliery houses; Westcott Terrace colliery houses, condition of houses; starting work, coke ovens, cleaning bricks, bricklayer at the mines, bellman at the pits Dean and Chapter, 1947, night classes; [00:11:30] shortage of trades, trainee electrician at Eldon drift, 1947, mines nationalisation (National Coal Board, NCB); working at Black Boy colliery until 1960; [00:15:25] transfer to Middridge, mechanised drift mine, different method of working, oil lamps, cap lamps, pits closure 1966; [00:18:00] vacancies, move to area pumping team; submersible pumps; ventilation of pits; furnace ventilation; enjoyment down pit; go down pit or leave home; recruitment; [00:24:30] difficult work, undercutting coal; stone in tub of coal; check wayman system and identified who filled tub; method of working and payments; full tub to screen and washery; empty tub back to pit; shifters made roadway easy to work, wynnings; [00:31:00] water in pits, issues with water levels, pumping water, issues with land water; Usher Moor produced water for local use; working day, repetitive work; [00:37:00] change in technology, work on signals, change from direct current (DC) (Leclanché cells) to alternate current (AC), introduction of Bell transformer; Dean and Chapter fully mechanised; ways of working; oil lamps, Davy lamps, safety regulations, use of naked lamps in the pits, more safety conscious after nationalisation; [00:42:50] accidents at Dean and Chapter mine, first aid, ambulance room; start work in 1937, accidents in pits then, NUM union book on men killed in County Durham mines, buzzer system, buzzer used when danger or accidents in mines; [00:47:05] first day down the mines, the Windy district, the landing area, bridge collapse, white fungi, damp atmosphere; [00:50:30] stables, mining horses, pit ponies, ponies behaviour, how ponies worked, how they knew shift timing and where to go, veterinarian when accident, well looked after, show pony at each pit, best pony Shildon show; horse keepers work; [00:56:00] brother’s work as a blacksmith, other brother’s work as banksman, stopping tubs on incline; mine work, boys picking stone off conveyer belt, Phoenix mine at Bishop Auckland, how coal was taken out of shaft, winder (hoist), safety measures, speed limit; [01:04:00] steam winders at Dean and Chapter mine, mechanisation, electric winders; [01:05:50] least favourite pat of job working on main draft ventilation, cold; comparison between working clothes at start of career and after nationalisation, National Coal Board supplying PPE; brother worked as geologist at Durham University, other brother electrician; gas power during Second World War, electricity at home after the war; [01:09:35] electricity generating plants at mines, permission to connect home to nearby mine’s electricity plant, taken over by electric boar; [01:11:20] mines in Shildon area, family members worked at mines, grandfather’s job as mechanic at South Shildon drift mine in 1929 [01:14:59] [end of interview]

Time Tracks, Shildon Railway Village Community Project was an initiative funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund that encouraged members of the public to bring photographs and documents at Locomotion to form a community archive, when Locomotion museum was opened in Shildon, 2004. Over 50 oral history interviews were also recorded with members of the community. They shared their memories of Shildon as they knew it in their childhood and throughout their lives, from as early as the 1920s, as well as their work experiences in local factories and industries, including Shildon railway works.