Although the primary purpose of the long-running Mining Review newsreel (1947-83) was to disseminate news about the activities of its sponsor, the National Coal Board, most editions also featured a lighthearted additional item that put miners' personal lives and hobbies under the spotlight. Individually, these items rarely ran for more than a couple of minutes, but they collectively add up to a wide-ranging, sociologically fascinating portrait. The second edition of Mining Review (1/2, 1947) set the tone, with a lively look at the rowdy annual Workington street football match. Team games would loom large in the newsreel's coverage, not least because many big names in football and rugby had a mining background, such as Freddie Trueman ('Yorkshire Express, 6/10, 1953), Ken Jones (9/8, 1956), Johnny Schofield (13/5, 1960) and Arthur Holland (17/10, 1964). Indeed, 'Talent Scout' (2/5, 1949) showed the process by which they were selected for a sporting career (which paid a pittance at the time, so mining and sporting careers had to run concurrently). Individual football matches were covered in 'Crook Draws' (5/9, 1952), '12X' (6/5, 1953), 'Winged Victory' (7/7, 1954), 'Yorkshire 0-2' (12/5, 1959) and 'The Crowd Roars' (17/10, 1964), rugby in 'Welsh Rarebit' (3/7, 1950), 'Another Try' (3/10, 1950), 'Late Night Final' (4/11, 1951), 'Over Men' (13/1, 1959) and 'Try-Try-Try Again' (14/5, 1961) and cricket in 'Country Club' (3/2, 1949), 'Valley Match' (9/1, 1955) and 'Saturday Innings' (13/11, 1960). Less common team games were also celebrated, including ice hockey ('Coal on Ice', 1/7, 1948), baseball ('Home Run', 5/11, 1952), netball ('Netball', 8/10, 1955; 'Net Results', 18/11, 1965), roller hockey ('Crock'n'Roll', 10/11, 1957), quoits ('Ringtime', 13/12, 1960), bowling ('On the Mat', 18/12, 1965), curling ('Roaring Game', 19/5, 1966) and the traditional South Yorkshire game of 'Nipsy' (6/2, 1952). Boxing was also a popular pastime, celebrated in fourteen items. The NCB ran its own amateur boxing championships, as featured in 'Miners With Gloves On' (1/8, 1948), 'Sparring for Wembley' (2/7, 1949), 'Mixing It' (3/6, 1950), 'Knockout' (4/7, 1951), 'The Last Round' (4/10, 1951), 'Out Cold' (6/8, 1953), 'Boxing: National Finals' (8/11, 1955), 'Knocked 'Em in the Old Ford Road' (9/10, 1956), 'Ringside' (11/10, 1958) and 'Final Night' (17/9, 1964). 'Eddie Thomas' (4/8, 1951) tracked the career of a former NCB champion turned European title-holder, 'Merthyr Boy' (14/11, 1961) saw featherweight champion Howard Winstone returning to his roots (Winstone was later congratulated in 'Well Done', 15/11, 1962) and 'The Fighting Harveys' (15/10, 1962) portrayed five mining brothers who also boxed in their spare time. Miners also indulged in wrestling ('Free For All', 6/4, 1952), fencing ('Young Blades', 3/8, 1950; 'Touché', 12/11, 1959) and martial arts such as judo ('Judo', 11/11, 1958; 'Way of Gentleness, 15/12, 1962; 'Tuesday at 7.30', 18/3, 1964), karate and kendo ('Oriental Touch', 19/9, 1966). Other featured sports included aerial antics ('Sky Shift', 12/3, 1958; 'Flying Spark', 19/12, 1966), archery ('Bow', 8/1, 1954), billiards ('Champion Amateur', 5/3, 1951; 'Lucy's Table', 18/9, 1965), cycling ('Miners On Wheels, 3/4, 1949; 'Riding High', 8/12, 1955; 'Feet', 18/8, 1965), darts ('Double Tops, 14/3, 1960), golf ('Tee Boy', 5/5, 1952; 'Club Meeting', 6/1, 1952; 'Clubmen', 18/10, 1965), long-distance walking ('Miner On Foot', 13/9, 1960; 'The Limburg Walk', 16/2, 1962), motorsports ('Mining Motorists', 11/12, 1958), rifle shooting ('Marks Manager', 11/3, 1957), rock climbing ('Stonework Over Easter', 4/9, 1951; 'Outward Bound', 6/12, 1953), roller skating ('Rolling Miner', 13/10, 1960), swimming ('Pithead Baths', 2/1, 1948; 'Splash', 4/2, 1950; 'A Time to Dive', 12/2, 1958), weight training ('Nailbreaker', 11/8, 1958) and assorted water sports including rowing ('Miners Off-Shore', 4/3; 1950), canoeing ('Olympic Possible', 5/10, 1952) and even waterskiing ('Sea Ski', 20/3, 1966). Mining Review's athletics stories paid much attention to Olympic silver and bronze medallist Dorothy Hyman, a NCB tracer in her day job - she featured in 'Plan For Speed' (13/3, 1959), 'Silver and Bronze' (14/2, 1960) and post-retirement in 'She' (22/5, 1969), where she's shown putting younger colleagues through their paces. Other profiled miner-athletes included Arthur Rowe ('Big Shot', 12/7, 1959), Fred Norris (12/10, 1959), John Whetton (22/1, 1968) and paraplegic Michael Shelton ('Tokyo Gold', 18/5, 1965), winner of a gold medal at the 1965 Paralympics. Frequent coverage of traditional field sports of the hunting, shooting and fishing variety demonstrate that they were by no means exclusively upper-class pursuits. An untitled item from 1st Year No.6 (1948) depicted hound trails in Cumberland, a theme followed up in 'Fox Hunt' (4/12, 1951), 'Horse Shift' (17/6, 1964) and 'Hunting Country' (19/8, 1966), while 'Shotfirer' (11/8, 1958) portrayed a miner who turned his love of shooting into a pest disposal service. On the water, 'Where's The Catch?' (3/3, 1949) recorded an NCB angling competition, 'Sammy Roan' (9/12, 1956) celebrated a champion paraplegic angler, while 'Miners At Sea' (19/1, 1965) and 'White Collar Job' (19/7) looked at miners from Yorkshire and Kent who go fishing offshore. More benign animal-related hobbies included races involving dogs ('Hare and Hounds', 2/9, 1949; 'Whitehaven Whippets', 15/7, 1962), horses ('Pitmen's Derby', 2/12, 1949), and pigeons ('Coo!', 1/11, 1948), while miners also bred mink ('Mink', 8/4, 1954), collies ('Colliers' Collies', 11/5, 1958) and pigeons ('Coal Birds', 16/10, 1963), or simply looked after injured animals ('Bird Watchers', 14/4, 1960). Performance-based activities included amateur dramatics ('Forthcoming Attractions', 2/6, 1949; 'Rose Marie', 8/12, 1955), circus skills ('Big Top', 3/9, 1950), stage magic ('Bretby Magic', 16/7, 1963), with music looming particularly large. Traditional miners' brass bands were depicted in 'Up for the Cup' (4/4, 1950), 'Brass' (7/9, 1954), 'Top Brass' (8/6, 1955). Miners also sang folk songs ('The Miner Sings', 4/9, 1951), entered jazz competitions ('Jazz', 9/5, 1956), rang bells ('Campanologists', 14/12, 1961), played bagpipes ('Skirl', 15/1, 1961), sang in choruses ('Messiah', 16/2, 1962) while dancing miners could be seen in the chorus of Sadler's Wells ('Sadler's Welsh', 7/10, 1954), in clogs ('Clogged', 14/12, 1961), dance bands ('Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick, Slow', 20/7, 1966) and most memorably in tutus ('Balletomines', 7/12, 1954). Music-related holiday activities were featured in 'Miners' Music' (15/2, 1961) and a look at the work of the Annual Workers Musical Association Summer School (27/2, 1973). Leisure activities in general were frequently featured, including an entire edition (2/12, 1949) devoted to the subject of visits to Butlin's and Blackpool and cruising on the Thames. Other group visits were made to a holiday camp ('Free Week', 6/1, 1962), Blackpool ('Autumn Outing', 10/4, 1956), Skegness ('Week-End Off', 11/2, 1957) or a camp for paraplegic miners ('Holiday on Wheels', 16/2, 1962). In quick succession, 'In the Sun' (17/1, 1963) and 'Time in the Sun' (17/4, 1963) visited Italy (cheap holidays abroad were on the increase), though miners also enjoyed themselves at home in assorted events ('Tramp's Ball', 6/11, 1953; 'Sack Race', 7/2, 1953, 'Beer and Skittles', 8/2, 1954; 'Barn Dance', 9/9, 1956 and 'The Old Pheasant', 11/9, 1958). Much stress was also made on activities laid on for miners' children, including quizzes ('Coal Quiz Kids', 1/9, 1948), Christmas parties ('But Once A Year', 10/6, 1957) children's galas in Scotland ('Jewel Coronation', 2/1, 1948) and Ashington ('Children's Day', 12/12, 1959) and day trips on the Bluebell Railway ('Bluebelling', 15/5, 1962), while the kids could learn horse riding ('Mounted Minors', 13/4, 1959), roller skating ('Rink'n'Roll', 11/9, 1958) and even sword dancing ('Winlaton Sword Dance', 8/5, 1955). But Mining Review also celebrated more sedate, domestic pastimes. Miners made model trains ('Special Train', 6/4, 1952) and model mines ('Model Man', 11/4, 1957; 'Mini-Mines', 17/11, 1964), played chess ('Chess', 19/11, 1966), communicated via amateur radio ('Ham', 8/12, 1955), listened to jazz ('Downbeat', 9/7, 1956) made embroidery ('Stitch In Time, 13/5, 1960), wrote plays ('Play Boy', 15/6, 1962) and poems ('Harry Haines', 21/3, 1967), baked cakes (' Piece of Cake', 7/1, 1953), grew vegetables (' Lure of the Leek, 15/4, 1961) and occasionally won the pools ('The Jackpot', 5/7, 1952). As Lee Hall's play The Pitmen Painters suggests, by far the most popular indoor hobby was painting, usually on canvas ('The Art of Mining', 13/4, 1959) but also on mining canteen walls ('Art', 8/6, 1955) and even eggs ('Egg Man', 18/1, 1964). Individual artists profiled included Norman Cornish ('Pitman-Painter', 16/5, 1963) and Tom McGuinness - the latter, perhaps the most celebrated miner-painter, received two eponymous profiles in 1966 (19/10) and 1972 (25/9), the latter on the eve of his first London exhibition. When Mining Review was renamed Review in 1972, an unfortunate by-product of the editorial decision to switch to single-story editions was that with very few exceptions (notably 'Art and Mining', 30/11, 1977, a look at the art to have emerged from the industry itself, or the colourful 'Band Fever', 32/1, 1978, about the Junior Jazz Bands of the Midland coalfields), they tended to deal with weightier subjects. But the newsreel's first twenty-five years comprise an extraordinary collective portrait of ordinary lives, doubly valuable for the fact that these communities are mostly long vanished. Michael Brooke
|
