December 1965, Evening Chronicle interviews with three of the four surviving Wreckers

By Peter Hinchliffe

 

Robert Harbottle's story

​

"It's over and done with," said Robert. "I'd rather forget it. I didn't talk about it after I came out of prison and I'd rather not talk about it now." 

 

Thomas Robert's story

 

"I've worked in the mines for more than 50 years," said Tommy. "I got a certificate from the NCB and an appreciation dinner, and £2 from the union. It doesn't seem much for 50 years' service but I'm not complaining."

 

Tommy continued: "I remember the 1920s all right. We had to buy our own explosives in those days. Sometimes you would pay £2 a week for powder, and you would be taking home not much more than £1 a week. 

 

"I remember that meeting on May 10. We were told that we must stop everything. The lads were incited, you know.

 

"Then we went down on the line throwing pennies up and these blacklegs walked by. We chased them, then we took the rail up

 

"You know the one I feel sorry for the most was poor young Billy Baker. He got four years, and I swear he didn't have any part in it at all. He was down there on the line gathering seeds for his canaries. He kept canaries did Billy. He never did anything to do with the rail.

 

[Editor's note: Billy Baker wasn't a miner. He worked in a glass factory].

 

"You know that train should have stopped. We thought all passenger trains had stopped running anyway ... never dreamed it would be a passenger train. 

 

"I really was scared of somebody getting killed when it went over. I watched it happen, then I ran.

 

"I told my dad what had happened and he said: "You've done a stupid bloody thing."

 

"You know, I'd just spent six years in India, in the army. Only been home six months. I got my demob pay and went out to celebrate and the police came and got me as I was going home.

 

"When they got us in court I thought they would give us ten years apiece. I was single myself then, but I wanted the married men to turn King's Evidence and get off. They said: "No we have done it and we stick by it."

 

"They said that me, Bob Harbottle and Arthur Wilson were the ringleaders, the ones that planned it. That's why we got the longest sentences. It wasn't planned, you know. It all happened on the spur of the moment 

 

"I worked alongside the key witness [Lyle Waugh] in the pit when I got out ... worked at the coal face with him! I played football with him at weekends, too. I played in goal and he played full back. We never said anything about it. What was the point in saying anything?

 

"You know, I was used to rough food. I'd been in the army. Some of the lads said they couldn't eat the potatoes in prison because they still had their jackets on. I told them, "you will eat them when you've been here a bit" and they did.

 

"The police were very good to us all the way through. There was a Sergeant Graham in Cramlington. When I came out of prison he would see me on the street and push some money into my hand and say "go and get yourself a pint".

 

"My father worked down the pit from the age of nine 'til he was 73 and I've worked down the pit the best part of my life. There have been some hard times. Things are a lot better now. The bosses don't have all their own way.

 

"I can honestly say we never intended to derail a passenger train, and we definitely didn't intend to kill anybody!"

 

Arthur Wilson's story

 

"I'd been married for a year when it happened. We had a young bairn.

 

"We were told in a meeting in the [Cramlington Institute]: "If you can't stop the trains at the stations stop them between the stations."

  

"I remember we got hammers out of the cabin up the line. We did not know it was a passenger train. We thought it would be a goods [train]. I felt scared when I saw it happen."

 

"They knocked us up at midnight when they came to arrest me.

 

"We went out to celebrate when one of the witnesses died a few years ago. That's the first time I ever celebrated when a man died but I couldn't help it.

 

"One of the witnesses lived next door to my wife all the time I was in jail. Can you imagine that! 

 

"When we got out we were never treated as though we were criminals. I've always talked about it and told people what happened. 

 

"I went to Manchester the other week to my grand-daughter's wedding. My daughter is married to a police sergeant there. There were some detectives at the wedding and I asked, "how do you like drinking with an ex-con?" They all laughed. 

 

"We heard after it was all over that if it hadn't happened in Cramlington, it would have happened at Dudley. The miners there were waiting for the trains too.

 

"There were a lot got off who were as guilty as us, I can tell you. One of the lads went down his street crying that afternoon. One of his relatives washed and dried his suit and he got away with it. He wasn't arrested.

 

"I don't think we will ever have another General Strike. Those days are gone. I'm bound to say though, that if the circumstances were the same I would do the same again as we did that day. What else could we do?"

 

Arthur's wife, Rose Wilson, said: "It was doubly hard for me. Another of the men who was convicted was my youngest brother William Stephenson. We all got married together in a double wedding.

 

"I was washing that day [Monday]. I heard a screeching and I ran out on to the line. These women got off the train, and I will always remember them saying: "Get home and get your dirty faces washed. You miners, get your dirty houses cleaned."