Messrs Roberts and Muckle 

​

Daphne Morrison was born and raised in Cramlington’s Nelson Village and can remember two of the Cramlington Train Wreckers - Tommy Roberts and Bill Muckle.

 

Today, Daphne (nee Shanks) is a sharp 80-year-old, and the fascinating memories of her working-class childhood remain crystal clear. 

 

“I first learnt about the Cramlington Train Wreckers when I was aged ten,” recalled Daphne, who was born in 1944. “We lived at 48 Arcot Avenue, the same street as Tommy Roberts and Bill Muckle.

 

“I was walking with my next-door neighbour, Aunty Elsie - she was no relation, but back then we called close family friends aunty and uncle  - when Tommy Roberts approached. He’d been to his beloved allotment at the top of the Nelson. Aunty Elsie spoke to him briefly, then turned to me to say there were still people who called Tommy a “jailbird”. Her disapproval of the term was obvious. 

 

“This was in 1954, 28 years after he’d been imprisoned with seven other Cramlington lads for his part in the train derailment. 

 

“I didn’t know what a jailbird was, so when I got home, I asked my dad, who told me about the 1926 general strike and the train derailment. 

 

“I was amazed,” said Daphne. “It just stuck in my mind.  I was particularly interested because the mainline railway was at the bottom of our garden. How could they derail a whole train? And yet, no one was seriously injured. 

 

“I remember I was on the side of the imprisoned miners there and then. To be imprisoned was bad enough, but to have been sent to Maidstone, 300 miles away from their families, was plain cruel. Their’s were harsh sentences: 48 years combined.

 

“Dad said if they had been sent to Durham prison [27 miles away] it would have been difficult for the families to visit, but to get to Maidstone in Kent was nigh impossible.”

 

Daphne continued: “They might have been a bit foolish and naive to do what they did, but it was a general strike. My dad [Joseph “Joe” Shanks] was a miner all his working life. He was only 23 at the time of the 1926 general strike; he and Mam must have known real hardship, like so many miners’ families. 

 

“Dad educated me about A.J. Cook (the miners’ leader) and politics, especially what the Labour Party stood for. So I grew up believing in socialism.

 

 “My parents and I were regular churchgoers, so being a socialist was as much a part of us as our faith was. 

 

“I recall people knocking on our front door to ask Dad, a miner, for a shovelful of coal, and him giving it to them. They didn’t have the money to buy coal.  My dad said: “No one should have to sit in the cold”. That’s how people were then, always ready to help each other.” 

 

Daphne’s mam, Dorothy Shanks [nee French]  was in domestic service after leaving school, excelling in cooking. Something she went to college in Newcastle to study for a year - quite unprecedented for a working-class woman at the time.

 

“She became a housewife after marrying Dad, bringing her wide culinary skills into the household,” said Daphne.  

 

Daphne’s dad became a deputy shot firer at Nelson Colliery, which closed in 1958, and he was transferred to Isabella pit in Blyth.

 

“I only knew Tommy Roberts in passing,” explained Daphne. “We’d say hello. He was always smiling. 

 

“Most people I knew were supportive of the imprisoned miners. They were well-respected in the community. Hence, I called him “Mister Roberts” for as long as I lived there. 

 

“My fondest memories of Mr Roberts are of him smiling and pushing a pram laden with vegetables from his allotment. I recall he reared chickens.”

 

After Daphne’s two brothers and sisters had moved out of the family home in Arcot Avenue, leaving her the only sibling in the house with mam and dad, the Shanks moved to nearby Allensgreen in the late-1960s.

 

Getting to know Bill Muckle came after Daphne had graduated in teacher training at High Melton in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, and later obtained a higher degree at Newcastle University (“the first in the family to go to university”) which led to her becoming a teacher at Parkside Middle School (formerly “the Village school”) in Cramlington, from 1979 to 1986. By 1980 she was Head of English and Drama, as well as teaching French. 

 

One of Daphne’s colleagues, Joyce Iszatt, was teaching general subjects and an older man would regularly visit her, presenting Joyce with a ham sandwich on each occasion. 

 

“Why was Bill Muckle doing this, I wondered?” said Daphne.  

 

“It must have been 1980 [Bill’s autobiography No Regrets came out in 1981]. Obviously, I knew who Bill was and that he lived in the miners’ cottages opposite Cramlington station, not far from where I was brought up. 

 

“I was intrigued why Bill was visiting Joyce so often.

 

“It turns out Joyce was recording him at his cottage for the book and he was such a nice man, he came to school, bringing her a sandwich each time as a thank you.  

 

“Bill was 80 years old at the time, and I think he’d approached Joyce to write his life story, which she did. I couldn’t believe it. The Cramlington Train Wreckers was the story of my childhood!”

 

“Joyce was from outside the area but, through recording Bill, she was able to get the real timbre of his Northumbrian accent on the page, and his point of view, an insider’s account, of what happened on that fateful day: May 10, 1926.

 

“Again, we only spoke in passing, but out of respect, I called him Mister Muckle.”

 

Daphne continued: “Because of my enthusiasm and support for the project, Joyce gave me a first edition of No Regrets, which is a brilliant book. It’s a very emotional read.”

 

She added: “Although I taught in other schools in Northumberland, Parkside Middle will always have a special place in my heart.” 

 

Daphne married her late husband Malcolm (also born and bred in Cramlington), a British Rail worker, in 1970. In 2006, they moved out of Cramlington into another Northumberland home. 

 

But Daphne, who has a son, David, 50, and two grandchildren, will always remember her Cramlington upbringing:  the way the new town developed from the 1960s and the characters she came across in her youth, especially Tommy Robers and Bill Muckle.