Mexborough and Swinton Times June 17, 1927
Village Worthy
Mr Arthur Newsome of Broomhill
A Veteran of the Mines
Attending the opening of the miners welfare scheme at Broomhill on Saturday was the “grand old man” of the village, Mr Arthur Newsome, father Mr T Newsome, a member of the Wombwell Urban District Council.
He is 74 years of age and has an interesting history. He has add 66 years in the pits and to quote his own words, “looks like doing another shift or two yet.”
Mr Newsome gave a representative of them “Mexborough and Swinton Times” a few snatches of his life story. He said he was born at Blacker Hill, and that his father, Thomas Newsome, a miner, came from Bolton on Dearne. They belonged to one of the oldest local families.
“I started work in the Barnsley bed at Blacker Main, when I was eight years of age,” he said, “and my first job was trapping. We started early, finished late, and seldom saw daylight in winter. I stayed at Blacker Main until the pit was closed down about 40 years ago, and then I moved to Darfield Main, where I have been employed ever since.”
For the present Mr Newsome is unemployed, but he hopes soon to be in harness again. He explained that the resume work after dispute, but that the district in which he was employed as a dataller was set down about two months ago. “I would rather be working than hanging about,” he said. “There is nothing like work for keeping fit.”
Asked what he attributed his healthy old age to, Mr Newsome said he had never had time to think about being poorly. “I could have been ill if I had wanted to,” he said, “but I have to keep going. As a matter of fact, I shouldn’t be here by rights. Once at least I have been given up for dead. That was in 1916. I was buried by a fall of “muck” at the pit. After being buried for two hours I was brought out unconscious. That didn’t knock me out. Two days treatment in the hospital so me out and about again.”
Mr Newsome as a contented mind and is prepared to take things as they come. Asked what his tastes were in the refreshment line, he was not ashamed to confess that he liked a drink of beer now and again. “What yer fancy does yer good, “is adopting with him, and he claims the right after 66 years of hard toil to indulge himself a little.
“I want to live to be as old as my grandmother, Sally Hartley,” he said, “she was three months short of 100 when she died. She is buried in the churchyard at Bolton on Dearne. We are long livers. My father was 85 when he died. He would have been 100 this year. My mother was 77.”
Mr Newsome has witnessed many changes in the development of coal mining in South Yorkshire, and he can recall many disasters happening. Being only four years old at the time, he saw nothing of the London ale explosion, but he has a distinct recollection of hearing his father relating what happened there day by day.
He remembers quite well the Oakes explosion of 12 December 1866, in which over 300 men and boys lost their lives, and also the explosion at Edmunds Main, Swaithe in 1875 in connection with which there was a death roll of about 100. He himself was involved in an explosion at Blacker Men as long as 1861, when he was only 10 years of age.
“I was trapping at the time,” he said.
His “Suddenly there was a gust of wind, and the door crashed two with a terrific bank. I shouldn’t have been here today is the door and hit me. A man named George Beardshaw and several others were badly burned but nobody was killed.”
Mr Newsome is proud of the fact that he has been a member of the Yorkshire Miners Association for 60 years. “The first Yorkshire miners demonstration,” he said,” was at Sheffield in 1867, and the following year was held at Beechfield, Barnsley. The chief officials at that time were John Normanall and Philip Casey.”
Mr Newsome is regarded as an indispensable figure in the life of Broomhill and is highly respected in the villages. He has taken great pride in the development of the Miners Welfare scheme. Possessed of all his faculties and alerting mind and body, he is as good a man as many who are 20 years his junior.