Je accuse!

 

Lyle Stanley Waugh was one of six miners who turned King's evidence to accuse, which later led to the imprisonment of, the eight Cramlington Train Wreckers.

 

King's Evidence is defined as: "If you are charged with a crime and you turn King's evidence (or turn Queen's evidence), you agree to give information (such as the names of other criminals) to the court in order to reduce your own punishment."

 

All four of the surviving Wreckers in the 1969 BBC film Yesterday's Witness (aired in 1970) named Lyle Stanley Waugh and the other "turncoats" as people who were also physically involved in lifting the rail and chocks that led to the derailment of the Flying Scotsman on May 10, 1926. 

 

According to Arthur Wilson, Lyle Waugh was heard to shout: "Hadaway lads, lift the rail oot!"

 

Bill Muckle said: "Waugh was involved in the derailment. He was there with me! He knocked the last chock out. Everyone knew."

 

Those who turned King's evidence had been life-long friends of the accused. They played together as youngsters, even working together when they became miners. That searing, heart-breaking level of betrayal is felt by those imprisoned miners when interviewed for Yesterday's Witness.

 

According to Bill Muckle, Lyle Waugh had a brother [John Walton] in the police force and an uncle who was an inspector. 

 

"They obviously told him to turn King's evidence and save his own skin," said Bill. Who added: "It was a dirty, rotten trick!" Others who turned King's evidence were called Wardle, Taylor and Dodds.

 

In court, at the first hearing, Waugh said he was only eight yards from the scene. He later changed that statement to say in the sentencing court he was 300 yards from the scene. Given the jury had to issue a guilty verdict "beyond reasonable doubt" the decision rested on the credibility of the prosecution witnesses - all of whom admitted they'd changed their stories!

 

Technically, it was perjury - but the Judge dismissed this appeal! For a full account of the court proceedings read Margaret Hutcherson's book Let No Wheels Turn.

 

In his excellent book called Remembering West Cramlington Colliery and Village, Brian Godfrey mentions how the West Cramlington (Wrightson) pit closed on August 30, 1938.  

 

"Few families stayed in the Cramlington West Village after the closure, with lots of men transferring to the new Nelson pit (a mile or so away), in Nelson Village, housed in new colliery homes," he wrote.

 

A year after the pit closure, the 1939 Register for England and Wales, shows the Waugh family - headed by Lyle - still lived in Cramlington West Village. Their residence was 7 Blue Bell Row. 

 

Brian believes it is likely Lyle Waugh was now a salvage worker on the Wrightson pit site. He'd have been 40 years old at the time of the register.

 

We don't know what happened to Lyle from then until his early death 18 years later. 

 

Playwright Ed Waugh's grandmother Olive Waugh (nee Brooks) was born in 1906 and brought up in the nearby village of Dudley, where some of the imprisoned lived. Neither Olive nor her husband, Phil Waugh, was related to Lyle Waugh. 

 

Ed said: "My dad told me my Nana Waugh would point out people in the street who had scabbed during the General Strike.  She was a young woman at the time of the strike in 1926 and would tell my dad (born 1933) and Uncle George (born 1936) who these people were and what they had done to betray their fellow workers.

 

"Nana Waugh wasn't "political" in the party-political sense but she was from mining stock - her brother Ralph worked at Dudley pit as did her father - she was working class and instinctively knew how important solidarity was. 

 

"It also reflects how deep the General Strike and its consequences penetrated and affected the political consciousness of the working class."

 

Ed continued: "My paternal grandparents, Olive and Phil, also later lived in nearby Burradon, where my dad was born in March 1933, in the Grey Horse Inn, which they relief managed for a while. 

 

"My nana would almost definitely have known some of these people (The Wreckers and turncoats) or at least members of their extended family. 

 

"I now wonder if she was pointing out people who had turned King's evidence. I know they weren't very popular, to say the least, and were socially shunned. 

 

"Because of their betrayal and the social stigma that goes with that, I've heard other miners only reluctantly worked underground with them."

 

The area of the West Cramlington (Wrightson) pit is now the site of the beautiful Alexandra Park, opposite the Cramlington Learning Village. 

 

Chris Waugh, who is the great-nephew of Lyle Waugh, attended a Train Wreckers' talk in Cramlington and a day school in South Shields. He did some research, aiding his cousin Peter, and wrote this excellent account.

 

"Our [Waugh] family resided in Burradon/Dudley/West Cramlington, variously at Burradon Terrace, Freeholds, West Row, Double Row, Strawberry Row and Blue Bell Row, as well as a few addresses in Klondyke, Shankhouse and Seghill.

 

"Lyle was named after his maternal grandmother whose surname was Lisle. Not sure how or when the different spelling manifested, but he was definitely Lyle.

 

"Lyle was 15 when the Great War broke out [August 1914]. Two of his brothers - William and Ralph - were serving in the Northumberland Fusiliers at La Boiselle, at the start of the Somme offensive.

 

"William reached the German second line, was wounded and captured, spending the rest of the war in a POW camp. Ralph was wounded, and discharged in 1917 but he never fully recovered.

 

Lyle was a miner, but he also played football part time for Bedlington, and then full time at Queens Park Rangers in the 1923/24 season.

 

"Lyle returned to mining after his football spell in London. He married, had children, and died in 1957, aged 58."

 

When the first three prisoners - Bill Muckle, Willy Baker and Ollie Sanderson - were released on September 1, 1928, after two years and three months' imprisonment, part of their release celebrations was a big rally held outside the Farmer's Rest pub in Haymarket, Newcastle (where Marks & Spencer is now). 

 

Chris continued: "The Farmer's Rest may have had a family connection. I was told many years ago that Lyle's sister Sarah had been landlady at the Farmer's Rest with her husband James (who also served in the Northumberland Fusiliers) in the early 1940s, having previously managed the Spital House, a pub at Spital Tongues, from 1939. 

 

"[My cousin] Peter says he has found no evidence that this is correct, nor that in 1944 Sarah died in a fall at the Farmers Rest, so perhaps this is hearsay, but there may be at least a grain of truth in it."

 

Chris added: "Lyle's brother John Walton retired from the police as a sergeant, and worked for a number of years at Welwyn Electric, in Morpeth. 

 

"We have seen the report about a relative being a police inspector in 1926, but have not identified anyone who this could be.

 

"Either way, I think the pressure on Lyle must have been enormous prior to turning King's evidence, particularly from within his family."