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In 1962 my father had to move 15 miles from Mainsforth pit in Ferryhill to Tudhoe Colliery, near Spennymoor in Co Durham to seek work at the local coalmine, as his present job was under threat, wrote John Reece, who was a boy of 10 at the time.
We lived in the miners' houses built around 1920's. As a child I did not realise how primitive this house was and what a come down it was from our previous house. The houses did not have a bathroom, our baths being taken in an old zinc bath in front of the coal fire.
There was no flushing toilet. Our loo was across the 'back alley' and consisted of a large concrete structure with a wooden seat over it. All the toilet waste, kitchen waste and ashes from the coal fires were tipped into this.
Once a week a man with a horse and cart and a big shovel came down the street to empty them. Forty years on I wonder what would make anyone actually volunteer for such a job!
The row of house behind ours was being demolished and as kids this was one huge adventure playground. We would enter the houses and seek out 'treasures' left behind, often just broken ornaments and try to sell them door-to-door.
We also used to rip up large pieces of linoleum and use them as sledges to slide down the pit waste heap. We were always dirty in those days. Health and safety issues were a long way off.
The pits have long since closed and the houses destroyed to make way for a modern housing development. When my daughter complains she is bored with nothing to do, I remind her of the simple pleasures in life we found as 10 years olds.
My best friends in Tudhoe were Trevor Banks, John Raper and Peter Barnes. Peter Barnes was another who was always getting clips across the ears from the local Bobby (how times have changed!!).
Trevor and I were like brothers, doing everything together. John Raper moved into Tudhoe Colliery shortly after we did and he was much taller and bulkier than the rest of us so we soon recruited him into 'our gang' so we wouldn't get bullied by the 'Spennymoor School' kids!!
I met up with John quite by accident 20 odd years later, and he is now a senior police officer with Cleveland Constabulary.
We had moved to Tudhoe Colliery village when I was 10 years old and lived there for 9 months before my father decided the mines were too dangerous and we moved to Redcar, where my father got employment at the old Dorman Long steel works, later to become British Steel and latterly Corus.
John Reece, Cleveland, 2001
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