Arthur Wilson in the Evening Chronicle (1973 & 76)
Arthur Wilson, taken from a newspaper article
Evening Chronicle 1973
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In an interview with the Evening Chronicle ("Just a Moment" column) on Wednesday, January 1973, we discover Arthur's Maidstone Prison number was 135 and that he read Lenin while inside.
The article talks about Arthur being only six days away from his 74th birthday [February 5, 1973] and looking "fit and well".
Perhaps it is with tongue firmly in cheek that the unnamed reporter describes Arthur as a "once fervent disciple of Lenin ... a fire-eating ex-miner" [who was] "a fist-fighting roustabout who sought to introduce the new society".
Arthur, the report says, "sits alone in a bleakly furnished upstairs flat in one of Dudley's red-brick terraces ... mainline trains thunder past his bedroom."
In prison, his warder was an ex-naval veteran - "salty of language" - but with a "heart of gold". He'd slip Arthur a chew of baccy [tobacco]. It was in the prison library that Arthur read The Bible and Lenin.
As documented elsewhere in this website, the Cramlington Train Wreckers returned home as heroes, and that initial welcome, in intervening years, transformed itself into "local awe" according to the article.
Sadly at the time of the interview in January 1973, only four of the eight Wreckers were alive, but every one of them had "become part of the lore and legend of their communities".
In Dudley, Arthur was "pointed out in the street as the most famous local resident".
To his dying day, Arthur maintained a class hatred of the traitors who turned King's evidence. At one point, he lived on the same street as three of them and even offered to help the police when some of them got into a bit of bother outside a pub with the local constabulary.
"Despite taking his coat off and rolling up his sleeves, Arthur said: "The bobby telt me to get away home!"
In the article, Arthur recalled how people turned their backs on the funeral corteges of the turncoats and how they were scorned in the street.
Even 47 years on from the General Strike in 1973, Arthur showed no remorse for the 1926 derailment. "There was a lot of poverty then," he said. "It seemed there was no justice for working people. It seemed the right thing to do then. No one died. I suppose we'll not be forgotten, will we?"
Evening Chronicle 1976
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When interviewed by The Evening Chronicle in 1976 under the headline The Nine Days of May/When Despair Led to Destruction (04.05.1976), Arthur, described in the piece as "a sprightly 77 year old now living in Dudley", explained how he was one of the miners who broke into the signalman's cabin through a broken window and picked up keys for the fishplates and a heavy hammer.
From there, they moved in a group to the line. Bolts were removed with the keys. One bolt, too tight to slacken manually, was smashed by a hammer. [Note: allegedly by Lyle Waugh, who turned King's evidence].
Up to 40 men were involved, and many lifted the [heavy] rail from the track. As they worked, they could see a train approaching, moving slowly. An odd happening, as that part of the track was known as a "fast" stretch. Now we know that the scab platelayers had warned the train driver at Cramlington Station that there would be trouble ahead.
Passengers had been removed from the two front coaches and placed in the rear. The train moved slowly on, cautiously driven by its scab crew.
The engine left the line, and the train derailed. Passengers left the rear coaches and ran up the line. The train wreckers dispersed to their homes and sat back to await developments.
As we know, no one died, and only one person was slightly injured.
"There's no doubt about it, if anyone had died when that train went off the line, we would have had a noose around our necks," said Arthur.
"It was a bad thing to do, but it seemed to justify the feelings of the men at that time. People who say it couldn't happen again don't know just how desperate decent men can get.
"Nobody would say anything", recalled Arthur. "Then, finally, they managed to get four witnesses to come forward, including one, who turned King's evidence, who had been the chap who used the hammer".
"It was something we did which seemed right at the time", said Arthur, who was called before the governor of Maidstone Jail on December 22, 1929, and informed he would be released the next day.
Arthur, Tommy Roberts and Bob Harbottle were emancipated together. They had been sentenced to eight years' penal servitude, but due to Labour Movement pressure, they served only 3.5 years.