‘Unique humour is still there’ despite baffling TV bosses...
A FORMER Barnsley miner has been working with a Channel Four film company for a documentary on the mining industry
– but admits they’ve been perplexed with the town’s camaraderie.
Dave Cherry was a miner from 1962 until 1995 and worked in a number of Barnsley pits, and he’s since gone onto create several documentaries himself of his beloved town.
Having spent time with the filming company, who are from London, he took them to the weekly meeting at Dodworth Miners’ Welfare – although they didn’t seem to quite grasp how welcoming Yorkshire folk are.
Dave told the Chronicle: “They just could not understand the camaraderie of our communities, which I think is slowly disappearing.
“We are the last bastion of a working class way of life where everybody knew everybody.
“The still emotive 1984 strike is still hard to explain to these younger people.
“You have to forget today’s ‘me, me, me’ society and go back 40 years.
“I tried to explain that the 10 collieries, with thousands of miners in the borough were socially, as well as industrially linked. It was a kind of built in union.
“The miners went to the same pubs, clubs and football matches where their fathers went and spoke in the age old dialect that has ‘Chaucer’ like words and phrases.
“The unique humour is still there.
“I told everybody at the welfare the story of the Dodworth pit deputy marking ‘Forward’ and ‘Reverse’ on the haulage electrical panel. Much to the annoyance of the Under manager he wrote ‘R’ and ‘RR’.
“Trying to explain he said ‘R’ was reverse and ‘RR’ meant ‘Reight Rooard’.
“Needless to say they could not understand it although everybody in the club roared with laughter.”