South Yorkshire Times – Friday 18 November 1932

Oldest “Newsboy”

Wombwell “All-Weather” Veteran

Loves the Job

A Tribute to the “Times”

Mr. John Mattocks.

Meet Mr. John Mattocks, of 16, West Street, Wombwell. He is 76 years of age and perhaps Yorkshire’s oldest “newsboy.” He takes the “South Yorkshire Times” into many homes in Wombwell, and carries daily papers into hundreds of houses every day except Sunday. His daily round with his newsbag and barrow is about ten miles, and since he gave up working in the mines he has walked a distance equal to three times round the earth.

Mr. Mattocks is “little and good.” He is small but full of vitality, and could walk most boys off their legs. On wet days or when the snow is knee deep his customers often ask him in but their sympathy is wasted. Old John loves the open air in all weathers. Rain or blow, fog or fine, he rises when the Wombwell Main buzzer wills him at six, and is on High Street, half a mile away, picking up his morning papers when the Town Hall clock strikes seven.

Working At Six.

John was born at Brierley Hill South Staffordshire, on the 23rd March, 1856, and at the age of six was earning his daily bread. His first little job was in the workshop of a chain maker, and he was set to blow the bellows of a forge, the handle of which he was only just high enough to reach. At eleven he went to work in a Staffordshire his job being to draw out the small coal as it accumulated where the colliers were “holing” under the face. He was known as a “dragger,” and to get underneath the face was equipped with a belt and chain which passed between his legs and connected with a little iron pan into which he had to scrape the coal.

The height was less than two feet and at the end of a long day John used to be thoroughly tired out. He shook his head as he recalled those bad old days. He mentioned that the seam in which he was working was the Staffordshire “thick.” The coal ran in seams of several yards and was worked in layers of about eight or nine feet. From “dragging” he went to pony driving and then to loading.

There came a time when the coal trade in Staffordshire was exceptionally bad, and John trekked north. He followed his brother to Wombwell and started tramming at Lundhill.         His collier at that time was “Sergeant” Davis, who fought in the Indian Mutiny. Six years he stayed at Lundhill, and then for the remainder of his mining life worked at Mitchell Main, Darfield Main and Cortonwood—the last twenty years at Mitchell Main.