Mexborough and Swinton Times, October 14, 1939
Working at Nine
Wombwell Couple’s Recollections
Golden Wedding of Mr & Mrs T Radcliffe
A worthy old Wombwell couple whose lives are crowded with memories are due to congratulations this week.
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Radcliffe, who occupy a little tree-embowered cottage on the edge of Wombwell Wood overlooking the pleasant vale which leads down to Lundhill, celebrated their Golden Wedding yesterday. With them at the family party were one son and two daughters. A large wedding cake made by one of their daughters, was illuminated by fifty tiny candles. From the depth of their hearts they were able to say that not a day of their married life had been regretted; also that if they had their lives to live over again they would make the same choice.
Mr. Radcliffe is 71 years of age and his wife 70.Both enjoy excellent health, except that Mrs. Radcliffe is “plagued” with rheumatism.
Amateur Naturalist.
A game-watcher for a good part of his life in the service of Captain Wentworth, by whom his father (Thomas) was employed for over 40 years. Mr. Radcliffe is now able to indulge his hobby as an amateur naturalist. He loves the wild and knows every bird by name. Whenever his eye lights on an uncommon specimen or anything unusual in nature he loses no time in notifying the “Times” and getting into touch with those who are experts in that line. Well known naturalists with museum connections often call to see him.
It was Mr. Radcliffe who, a few months ago, found a tomtit’s nest in a petrol tin and, to win a bet, carried the tin and bird to a public house and back. Day or night he is thoroughly at home in the woods. Mr. Radcliffe was born at Winstanley Park, near Wigan, but left there early enough to forget the Lancashire dialect. He is now thoroughly “Yorkshire.”
A gamekeeper for Squire Banks, his father heard of the wages miners were getting in the Barnsley district and, leaving Lancashire when young Tom was seven, got a job at Silkstone Fall Colliery, near Barnsley. Tom went to a little school at Worsborough Common kept by Mr. and Mrs. Swift, but before he was ten years of age he was driving a pony at Rosie Pit, Smithies, near Barnsley. The family lived at Worsborough Common and Tom had to walk two and a half miles each way for a shilling a day. He recalls that if he happened to break a lamp glass his day’s wage was reduced to 6d.
Rosie Pit, Mount Osborne and Old Mill Colliery were all worked by Day’s Company, and the workers at all three collieries bad to go to Mount Osborne to draw their wages.
Bad Old Days.
Tom explained to a “Times” reporter that they descended to their work by an upcast shaft ventilated by a furnace, the fumes from which were so strong that when in the cage they had to place their caps over their months so that they would not choke. The boards over the top of the shaft were referred to by the men as “coffin boards.” The men worked with “Georgie” lamps, one, of the earliest type of safeties.
Tom’s mother had a prejudice against the pit and so when he had been at Rosie pit about twelve months she got him a job at Mitchell’s Foundry at Worsborough. All went well until they asked him to send to Lancashire for his birth certificate. This showed him to be three months under age, and the manager warned him that he would “get him wrong.”
With this reproof Tom went back to the pit where, the manager said, they were “not so particular.” As a matter of fact. Tom has a brother Jack, who does not know his own age, except that his mother always said he was about two years and three months younger than Tom.
When he was nine Tom worked at Thompson’s brickyard at Worsborough, his job being to fire the kilns. While there he rescued a lad from drowning, the lad having fallen into a fourteen feet deep sump while walking across a plank. It was not until thirty or forty years later that Tom got to know the lad’s name. He happened to working at Barrow Colliery and remarked to the man beside him that he once saved a boy from drowning at the old brickyard. The man (Tom Colton) dropped his pick. “I am that boy,” he said.
Barnsley Murder Recalled.
After that Mr. Radcliffe worked at Church Lane, Sutcliffe’s pit, and other old collieries round about Barnsley. In 1886 he was working at Chamberlain’s brickworks in Dodworth Road, Barnsley, when his pal, Billy Richardson, had a few words with the manager, Mr. Burridge, went home to get a revolver and, returning to the works, shot him. Richardson was hanged for the crime, though strenuous efforts were made to obtain a reprieve. Tom’s father actually went from door to door in Barnsley getting signatures for the petition. Because a doctor was reprieved for a similar crime in Barnsley about that time, the people made up a rhyme and went round singing “one law for the rich and another for the poor.” Tom has vivid recollections of the Swaithe Colliery explosion of 1875.
Finishing his career as a miner at New Oaks Colliery, Stairfoot, in 1899, Tom’s father went back to gamekeeping, and remained in the service of Captain Wentworth, who had a very high regard for him, for forty years, living all the time in the little house in Wombwell Wood. In those early days a miner could leave a pit one day and start at another the next, most of them being after the “biggest penny.” Tom eventually got to Wombwell Main and remained there until he was 65, afterwards being employed as a game watcher. He has been a paid up member of the Yorkshire Mineworkers’ Association since 1888 without a break, and enjoys a small Y.M.A. pension. He Is certainly one of the oldest members. Captain Wentworth’s regard for the father found expression in many kindnesses towards the son, though Tom was never really “on the staff:’
Wombwell Tragedies.
Tom remembers the old woodland cottage before the railway came through in 1897—when the road past the top to Hemingfleld was nothing more than a grassy track and pedestrians had to back into the hedge to let the farm carts pass. It was shortly after the opening of the railway that a boy, John Tom Thornley, was killed while crossing the line to Tom’s house with newspapers from the station. After that the short cut over the line was closed.
There was another tragedy near Tom’s house on the last day of July, 1906. Caught in a thunderstorm while on their way to Wombwell Main Colliery in the early morning, six men sheltered under a beech tree. The tree was struck by lightning and two of the six were killed, the others being more or less severely burned and injured. Tom recalls how they carried the two dead men into his cottage and got “looking-glasses” to put near their mouths to see whether they were still alive. Alas, they were past aid. That was exactly on the site of “Two Trees,” where Miss Elliott lives.
Mrs. Radcliffe was born in Albert Street. Barnsley, a narrow thoroughfare running from May Day Green to the rear of the premises now occupied by the Barnsley Co-operative Society’s Cheapside Drapery department. Her maiden name was Mary Ann Hamilton and she was brought up by her grandmother (Bertha Green), who held the licence of the Market Inn. Barnsley. She was standing on the steps of that house when she first caught Tom’s youthful eye. At eighteen she went to work in a mill at Bradford, and it was through her connections with that district, and her knowledge of textile work, that Tom got work “in plush” during the great ’93 coal strike.
Of a philosophic enquiring turn of mind, Mr. Radcliffe finds “tongues in ‘trees.” and good in all the world that happy retirement has left him with.
The home of this old couple is a model of contentment and domestic happiness.