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The Pitmen's Requiem
Peter Crookston's book offers a beautifully written journalist's account of a Durham mining village and the Great Northern Coalfield woven around the life of Robert Saint, the composer of Gresford, a brass band composition commemorating an earlier mining disaster in which 256 workers died. Crookston brings his formidable observational qualities and writing skills as a journalist to produce a gripping narrative with utterly compelling characters and a heart-rending culmination in the demise of the mining industry under assault by Thatcher. The story is told in a gentle, unpretentious way, frequently giving voice to the characters themselves, many of whom the author knew personally or got to know in preparing the book. Apart from capturing a critical moment in a disappearing world, the book offers a vantage point from which to reflect on our own culture, and what we have lost in post-industrial Britain: the loss of community which did so much to sustain and nurture those miners in their desperate plights. This is as much a history of culture and place as much as it is biography, a book that is at once an elegy and a tribute
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The Pitmen's Requiem
Peter Crookston's book offers a beautifully written journalist's account of a Durham mining village and the Great Northern Coalfield woven around the life of Robert Saint, the composer of Gresford, a brass band composition commemorating an earlier mining disaster in which 256 workers died. Crookston brings his formidable observational qualities and writing skills as a journalist to produce a gripping narrative with utterly compelling characters and a heart-rending culmination in the demise of the mining industry under assault by Thatcher. The story is told in a gentle, unpretentious way, frequently giving voice to the characters themselves, many of whom the author knew personally or got to know in preparing the book. Apart from capturing a critical moment in a disappearing world, the book offers a vantage point from which to reflect on our own culture, and what we have lost in post-industrial Britain: the loss of community which did so much to sustain and nurture those miners in their desperate plights. This is as much a history of culture and place as much as it is biography, a book that is at once an elegy and a tribute
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The Pitmen's Requiem

The Pitmen's Requiem

by Peter Crookston
The Pitmen's Requiem
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The Pitmen's Requiem

The Pitmen's Requiem

by Peter Crookston

Overview

Peter Crookston's book offers a beautifully written journalist's account of a Durham mining village and the Great Northern Coalfield woven around the life of Robert Saint, the composer of Gresford, a brass band composition commemorating an earlier mining disaster in which 256 workers died. Crookston brings his formidable observational qualities and writing skills as a journalist to produce a gripping narrative with utterly compelling characters and a heart-rending culmination in the demise of the mining industry under assault by Thatcher. The story is told in a gentle, unpretentious way, frequently giving voice to the characters themselves, many of whom the author knew personally or got to know in preparing the book. Apart from capturing a critical moment in a disappearing world, the book offers a vantage point from which to reflect on our own culture, and what we have lost in post-industrial Britain: the loss of community which did so much to sustain and nurture those miners in their desperate plights. This is as much a history of culture and place as much as it is biography, a book that is at once an elegy and a tribute

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780857160690
Publisher: McNidder and Grace
Publication date: 01/05/2014
Sold by: Bookwire
Format: eBook
Pages: 232
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Peter Crookston is a former Sunday Times and Observer journalist. He also wrote the script for Lions Led by Donkeys, a Channel 4 documentary.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgements x

Foreword Margaret Drabble xii

Prologue 1

1 The Man with the Showman's Wagon 8

2 The Ship of the Road 13

3 The People Priestley Admired 19

4 The Musical Miner 25

5 Why 'Gresford' Mattered so Much 30

6 When the Mines Inspector Wept 36

7 The One-man Dance Band 42

8 The Gala Days of DBC Pierre 46

9 The Poor Peoples Vet 49

10 'It's So That We Don't Forget Them' 53

11 The Inspector Vanishes 60

12 'The Gala Is About Our Heritage' 65

13 A Walk Down Seaside Lane 69

14 A Man Who Knew His Worth 78

15 'You Somehow Know It Demands Respect' 81

16 From Mining Camps to Pit Villages 87

17 'Factory Folks Are Different' 90

18 Encamped on a Raft of Coal 94

19 Lament for a Vanished Culture 98

20 'It Makes My Hair Stand on End' 104

21 No Shoebox in the Wardrobe 108

22 'The Price the Miners Paid' 116

23 Peter Lee - the Man and His Town 120

24 The Battle of Easington 128

25 Misunderstanding the Miners 135

26 The Femme Fatale of the Coal Trade 138

27 'I Was Born to Be a Miner' 142

28 Bringing Children into the Sunlight 146

29 'I Loved Working in the Mines' 152

30 'The Best Years of My Life' 157

31 A Cold Day by the Don 165

Appendix: The Verses of 'Gresford' 169

Notes 171

Bibliography 176

What People are Saying About This

Tony Benn

Peter Crookston's book is very remarkable. He knows the area well, and he's captured the spirit of the industry and the story of Gresford and has brought it together in a very skilled way. I think it is something that future generations will go back to, to understand the Gresford Hymn but also the industry it speaks about. A very, very remarkable book.

From the Publisher

"This is an elegy and a tribute—a moving account of the pit closures and miners' strikes, as well as an exploration of a landscape and a way of life that is vanishing day by day."  —Margaret Drabble, author, The Middle Way

"The story, ostensibly of one remarkable man's life, is a tunnel back into a complete world . . . a rich and complex way of life that is now sealed off and lost, like most of the old mine-workings that lay at the heart of it."  — Michael Frayn, author, Headlong

"Peter Crookston's book is very remarkable. He knows the area well, and he's captured the spirit of the industry and the story of Gresford and has brought it together in a very skilled way. I think it is something that future generations will go back to, to understand the Gresford Hymn but also the industry it speaks about. A very, very remarkable book."  —Tony Benn

"A very readable and enjoyable book." —Morning Star

"A wonderful book."  —Journal

"Highly Recommended."  —Shields Gazette

"Crookston has constructed a potent tribute . . . he makes you feel deeply nostalgic."  —Mail on Sunday

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