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Matty Tate |
Gordon Smith |
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There’s a photograph we found from a 1887 newspaper, which marked the fiftieth anniversary of May Day. Matty Tate’s in the picture and so’s Dicky Fynes, John Fraser and quite a number of other worthies. But nobody seemed to know exactly what they were celebrating.
Obviously, it would have been the Workers’ May Day as most of them were Socialists. Matty worked all his life in the pits and even at the age of seventy-five was still working at Seaton Delaval on the face, one of the hardest jobs you can get. He was still a hewer at 75! When he came out of the pit on his birthday, a reporter interviewed him and said, “Heck of a way to spend your birthday?”. Matty turned round and said, “If it wasn’t for the pit, there wouldn’t have been any birthdays!” He couldn’t afford not to work, so the people of Blyth got enough money together to allow him to retire. Matthew White Ridley, the local landowner, gave him a house for as long as he lived, in Queen’s Lane. |
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