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Richard Fynes |
Gordon Smith |
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Dicky Fines, at the age of eight, started work down a colliery as a trapper boy. Normally he never slept in, he was always at work on time. But on one particular day, he did sleep in. That was fortunate for him because all his colleagues were killed in an underground explosion.
When he was fourteen, he ran away to sea, and caught typhoid, and went back down the mines. He wasn’t happy at all about the conditions in the mines. He actively went out of his way to form a miners’ union. One of his great achievements was a book that he wrote, The History of the Northumberland and Durham Miners, which is still published to this day. After a number of years, because of his activities in the mines, he couldn’t get a job anywhere in Northumberland and Durham. I believe he travelled around the country a bit, but he came back up here, got himself a horse and cart, and started selling fruit and vegetables round the villages. He then managed to take over some premises. Dicky used the Octagon Chapel as a saleroom during the day, and at night, he used to put on plays, band concerts, go-as-you-pleases and that sort of thing. |
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