Day Trimdon Pit lost most of its workforce
IT had a place in the hearts of a whole community.
Trimdon Grange colliery had become known as "the good little pit."
It had provided work for 550 men, but that came to an end 42 years ago this month.
At 11.30am precisely on Friday, February 16, 1968, to be exact.
Men who came up the shaft from their last shift took a last bath and dumped their clothes into heaps by the door, "from where they were taken out to be burned behind the pithead baths," said our report on the day.
One of the laid-off miners was Tony Greathead, 23, from Trimdon Village who said at the time: "It is a good little pit and has always had a kind of happy family atmosphere."
He was one of the lucky ones. As he took his last shower at the pit, he revealed he was starting work at Fishburn Colliery the next day.
Another of the fortunate workers was 17-year-old William Storey from Trimdon Village who was transferring to Blackhall.
He said at the time: "I am sorry to be leaving Trimdon Grange because it was handy for getting to work, but Blackhall is not too far away."
Others were not so fortunate. Joseph Bowden, 61, from Wingate, only started at Trimdon Grange because his previous workplace - Wingate Colliery - had closed three years earlier.
His time at Trimdon had been partly curtailed by bronchitis.
He told the Northern Daily Mail: "I have no future prospects and have no hope of another job at my age."
Some men were due to transfer to other pits such as Kelloe and Fishburn. Around 350 men would be made redundant immediately with another 125 transferred to other collieries, and 75 retained for salvage work which was expected to take 22 weeks.
George Luke, 44, from Trimdon Grange, said he wanted to get out of the industry. He was strikingly correct in his prediction that "the coal industry is dying".
Ironically, the pit's closure happened on the 86th anniversary of the biggest disaster at the colliery.
On February 16, 1882, 74 men and boys lost their lives in an explosion at the Harvey Seam.
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