Southend U3A

September 2024

The Institute - Pete Norman.

The Miners Institute had stood proudly at the corner of Kenwood Road and Hoyle Mill Street for as long as anyone could remember. It was the corner stone of the town and fundamental to the lives of us miners, essential to the transition from the troglodyte caverns to the real world above.

Every morning, in the daily routine, as if by some unseen and silent signal, the doors of our houses would open and the men would emerge as one. At first, individually in ones and twos but with every road junction the numbers would increase and increase, like a river surging inexorably onwards, widening with every tributary, in its journey to the sea.

Near the end of this journey, the twisting, winding, column of humanity would finally round the corner into Hoyle Mill Street and pass beneath the sign. The sign read, ‘The Miners Institute’ but to those who relied upon its hospitality, it was simply, ‘The Toot’. They would hardly pay any attention to it – not on the way out, that is – because there, less than a hundred yards in front of them, was the dark foreboding bulk of the mine.

The column would narrow as it passed through the gates, across the front yard and into the pit head. The morning routines would be carried out with ritual formality: the handing over of the number tags, the collection of the helmets and the testing the helmet lamps. The column would then move slowly forward to the pair of lifts – open, metal framed cages, unbelievably claustrophobic when filled to capacity – then, with vertiginous speed, they would drop a vast distance down into the bowels of the earth.

The opening of the door, however, was not the end of their journey, for when they emerged from the lifts, they would still be some considerable distance from the coal face. This distance would steadily increase with every passing of the cutting machine, ripping a meter from the seam and so, in the interests of saving the miners’ energy – but mostly in the interest in productivity – their onward transport was the man-rider: a conveyor belt of thick canvas pulled along over heavy rollers through the ever-advancing tunnels – neither comfortable nor enjoyable but expedient.

When they finally reached the end of the tunnel, they would be dwarfed by the huge coal cutting machine, taller than a man, wider than a man, stronger than a man, which in a single pass along the long cliff face would gouge out tons of the precious black stuff. After a given number of passes, each of the jacks were loosened and moved forwards into the fresh new space created and behind them the roof would collapse into the void and the process would repeat . . . and repeat . . . and repeat.

In the stiflingly hot and oppressive atmosphere, the miners were dressed in little more than shorts and helmets and huge, strong boots while the wheel turned and turned and immeasurable tons of coal collapsed and was carried away on the heavy conveyors.

When, finally, the shift was over, the arrival process would be reversed and the exhausted men would clamber aboard their man riders and the lifts and a swift and numbing ride up to the real world again.

The showers were rows of open cubicles – with no modesty required nor any requested – and slowly but steadily, the black was scrubbed from their skin.

Finally, clean and dressed, the miners would emerge into the daylight and then trudge through the pit gates, their pace quickening as they grew closer to the ‘Toot’. They might have washed away the coal dust from their bodies in the showers but there was only one thing that could wash out the detritus from their throats.

The Tute was not large but somehow it could accommodate the entire shift in the side room. There was never any competition for seats as, being creatures of habit, each miner would take his ale at his usual table.

Over there, in the seat beside the fire, I can see old lou, warming his body before the fire and sharing the gossip with anyone and everyone who would listen.

Over by the window are the Hedley twins and their father.

Leaning against the bar are Frank and Freddie in their ever optimistic but equally fruitless pursuit of the barmaid Maisie.

There’s my own seat, by the other window, where I can feast my eyes on the open spaces of the real world and ease my exhausted eyes back to some s

emblance of normality again. However, there’s nowhere near as many sitting there as there used to be – we have lost far too many. Too many have surrendered to Silicosis, to old age and to migration, with the prospect of employment elsewhere.

But now the Toot is empty and the doors are all padlocked closed and the dust is covering every surface. I watch as the shadowy figures of old comrades finish their pints and drift slowly out and away to God alone knows where and I am left alone, paying my last respects to The Toot, a dear old friend.

The locked door is no barrier to me as I pass through its tired old timbers and fade into the streets . . . the empty streets of a mining town which imploded on the 3rd of March 1985 . . .

Who was it who sang: ‘The iron will and the iron hand, in England’s green and pleasant land?’

[Answer: it was Mark Knoppfler of Dire Straits]