Beachlife

The title of this blog sounds exotic… but it isn’t.

When dad lost his job and I think he was “on the dole” for 4 years…..we never were cold in the wintertime. He became one of many people who would bike to the nearest beach on the North East coastline to pick the coal scraps that were tipped onto the beach by the local coalmines. In his case, it was Horden and Easington.

Every day he took his bike and a couple of sacks and peddled to the beach….where along with others with bikes and even lorries collected coal to take home. Dad would be out nearly all day coming home late afternoon with two full sacks and that way he kept us his family warm.

Sometimes when the coal shed was full and we had some to spare he would sell a bucket load.

In the Summertime, we as a family would go on a Sunday afternoon with a picnic and I remember trying to climb the cliffs with my brother.

We would watch the buckets of scrap trundle along the line from the pithead to be dumped into the sea where it washed back up on the beach

There is nothing there now left to show what used to happen. All mines closed when a certain woman was power.

And you had to duck when sat in front of the fire if Dad had picked up a stone by mistake and it shot out.