Evening Chronicle Interview (December 1965)
Most of the following piece is based on an excellent interview by Newcastle's Evening Chronicle journalist Peter Hinchliffe with three of the four surviving Wreckers.
The two articles were published in the Evening Chronicle on December 28 and 29, 1965.
Images and further details/information have been added to bring the piece up to date. It stands as a terrific historical and social document.
The Australians were in the country to battle for the Ashes and, ironically, Tons of Money was scheduled to be staged at Newcastle Theatre Royal. You could buy an ounce of pipe tobacco for 11d (5p). It was May 10, 1926: day seven of the UK General Strike.
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The miners, taking home a little more than £1 a week while working long, dangerous hours, were told by coal bosses they were to take a 40 per cent wage cut.
On the fateful morning of Monday, May 10, miners from the Cramlington area gathered in the institute to listen to Bill Golightly, head of the Northumberland Miners' Union. "Stop all wheels turning," said Golightly, the grandfather of actor Robson Green.​​​​
Post meeting, the older miners returned home to bare tables and further hardships while younger, more militant miners were to spontaneously take matters into their own hands.
Wandering down towards the railway lines, around 40 or 50 restless young 'uns gathered to play pitch and toss with the few pennies they had left in their pockets.
Seeing around half a dozen scab platelayers walking past them on the lines, including Robert Wilson Martin, a civil engineer, one of the lads shouted "Blacklegs!".
Angered by the presence of the strikebreakers, others took up the chant while picking up stones to throw at them. One of the platelayer blacklegs was struck on the leg and another on the head as they fled.
In the BBC's Yesterday's Witness, broadcast in February 1970, William "Bill" Muckle mentions this incident, saying there were "about seven volunteers" all "wearing plus-fours". In an October 1976 Labour Monthly essay headed "Cramlington", Bill said: "Had middle class plus-four train crews not attempted to break the strike, the incident with the Flying Scotsman would never have occurred."
While the miners "chased" them, i.e. saw them off, they didn't bother to run after the scabs who headed to Cramlington Station (around 1,000 yards away) where they told other strikebreakers there would be trouble ahead for any train coming down the line.
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Inflamed by such blatant, provocative effrontery, around 40 of these angry, young miners raided a nearby railway workman's hut and, taking out striking hammers and other tools, went onto the line. They unbolted fish plates and removed a 45-ft length of rail. The idea was to bring any coal truck undermining the strike to a standstill before the engine got to the defective rail.
Meanwhile, at Cramlington Station, Robert Martin, the civil engineer, succeeded in stopping the next train, telling the scab driver and his fellow blacklegs, including a medical student and future Morpeth-based doctor, Dr. T. Snowdon Blaiklock (Assistant Guard), to be careful as there could be trouble down the line. This usually meant groups of miners throwing stones and clods of earth at scab train drivers.
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The famous Flying Scotsman passenger service derailed at Cramlington, Northumberland, on 10 May 1926.
(Image credit: The Northern Echo)
That train happened to be a passenger train heading from Edinburgh to York - the Flying Scotsman service pulled by the Merry Hampton engine. The fact it was one of the few trains running, and was terminating in York rather than London, shows there was only a skeleton train service running due to the successful strike action of railway workers. Also, by reducing the distances of train journeys, the government could manipulate figures to claim more trains were running than actually were. In this instance, a train then running from York to London would be used as propaganda that two trains ran when it was only usually one journey.
The train started again at Cramlington Station, and passengers were encouraged to pull down the window blinds. Imagine their nervousness!
Slowly, the engine picked up speed. There is talk of it reaching 30mph, but miners by the side of the line said it was impossible to build up this level of steam in such a short distance (1,000 yards) and estimated it was going 10 to 20 mph [thankfully otherwise, people may well have been killed]. Again, see Yesterday's Witness.
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One of the saboteurs allegedly held a red flag at Cramlington railway bridge, about half a mile south of Cramlington Station. A red flag waved violently on the railway forewarning of danger ahead, indicating to the train crew to stop the train immediately. This was either not seen or ignored by the driver, fearful of what might happen if he stopped.
The miners also said they thought the driver should have been able to see the gap caused by the missing 15 yards of rail, expecting it to stop before derailing. But he didn't.
Approximately 200 yards past the bridge, the derailment happened.
The shock, when they saw it was a passenger train carrying 281 people, is recorded in the interviews below.
As Arthur Wilson explains in his account: "We did not know it was a passenger train. We thought it would be a goods [train]."
​The Cramlington Train Wreckers plaque, seen hanging in the Morpeth surgery of Dr. Snowdon Blaiklock in the Yesterday's Witness programme
(Image credit: Wisecrack Productions)
The noise of the derailment must have been horrific. Those miners involved saw the crash and fled, fearing the worst: mass murder. Local men and women ran to the scene to offer help, but this was rejected in an aggressive manner by the shocked middle-class passengers, who had no guilt or qualms about travelling through more than 100 miles of mining heartland - from North Northumberland (via Berwick-upon-Tweed) through County Durham - on scab transport during a general strike.
No one was killed or seriously injured in the derailment. One man has a cut on his foot where luggage had fallen. Passengers, who were mostly in shock and dazed, were ferried by road transport to Newcastle Central Station to continue their journeys.
The event hit national and international headline news. It was anti-union, anti-working-class manna from heaven for the Establishment.
Weeks later, there had been no arrests and Sergeant Graham of Cramlington hadn't even submitted a report. Pressure was brought to bear on him by his superiors. Things were to change rapidly.
The General Strike and the miners were sold out by the TUC leadership, two days later, on May 12. It was a betrayal. An unconditional surrender by the so-called trade union leaders. This left the miners to continue their strike alone, which they did for seven months until starved back to work in December 1926.
As part of the savage carnival of reaction against trade unionists (because of the betrayal by the TUC leaders), questions were raised in the House of Commons as to why the Wreckers hadn't been caught and punished. Police spies were sent into Cramlington, but still, the loyal villagers didn't squeal despite knowing who the culprits were - all 30 or 40 of them!
The Tory Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks responded to calls to offer a reward saying: "It's not a general policy in cases of this kind to offer a reward when there is no evidence of the culprit."
However, with the net closing in, six of the miners involved in the derailment, led by Lyle Waugh, turned King's evidence to save their own skins.
The "Wreckers" were arrested. All of them worked at Wrightson Pit in West Cramlington.
Wrightson Pit, West Cramlington, in 1920 (now the site of Alexandra Park)
(With thanks to Brian Ridley)
On June 30, the trial started at Moot Hall (Newcastle Assizes). The men pleaded "not guilty" but the next day, on the perjured word of Waugh and a handful of others (who had also committed the crime), eight Cramlington Train Wreckers were sentenced to a total of 48 years' imprisonment at Maidstone Prison in Kent - 300 miles away from their families. It was a vindictive sentence.
The prisoners were allowed a visit for half an hour every six months.
Pressure for their release grew among the rank and file of the Labour and trade union movement. Even sections of the judiciary belatedly admitted the sentences were too harsh.
Leading the battle at the rank-and-file level were local trade union branches, Labour Party branches and the Communist Party-led International Class War Prisoners' Aid (ICWPA), who were also supporting trade unionists imprisoned by Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy and striking workers being persecuted in the USA.
Women members of ICWPA, carrying placards supporting the Cramlington lads, demonstrated in the lobby of the House of Commons. The ICWPA also provided financial support and food hampers to families of the political prisoners as well as paying train fares for their loved ones to visit Maidstone every six months.
Sentenced initially to four years, William Muckle, William Baker and Oliver Sanderson were released on September 1, 1928 (after two years, three months), and were met at Maidstone Prison gates at 7.15 am by members of ICWPA and Maidstone Labour Party.
Also among the enthusiastic crowd were the wives of Oliver Sanderson and Bill Baker, and Bill Muckle's mam.
One of the wives, holding a red flag, shouted: "The Union Jack put you in there but the red flag got you released." She broke down and cried.
At Newcastle Central station, the martyrs were met by a 3,000-strong crowd (as recorded by a police spy) on the then platform 10 - a heroes' welcome!
​Three released Cramlington miners:
William “Bill” Muckle (centre) with his mother - William “Billy” Baker (right) with his wife - Oliver “Ollie” Sanderson (left) with his wife.
(Image credit: Working Class Movement Library (WCML), Manchester)
Speeches were made and after a brass band played The Internationale and The Red Flag, the well-wishers marched up to Haymarket for another rally in front of the Farmers Rest pub (now Eldon Square's Marks & Spencer), where the freed men and crowd vowed to keep the fight alive for the release of the other five Cramlington Train Wreckers.
As they walked through the sympathetic human throng, people pushed money and cigarettes into the pockets and hands of the returning heroes. The rank-and-file campaign continued.
"Set them free" and other pro-Wreckers graffiti appeared around Cramlington's main roads and support meetings were held.
Fellow miners at Wrightson Pit held a weekly collection for the lads for "when they get out".
Miners’ wives and members of the Cramlington Labour Party Women's section held rabbit pie suppers to raise money for the campaign. They would probably be expelled by Starmer and his right-wing clique for this today!
