Oral history interview of William Pattinson (with some help from Mr Sullivan).
William Pattinson decided not to follow the route that most boys in the area took when they left school; to the docks or down the mine. Instead, he chose to work on the land. At 17 he started at the Cowpen Colliery Company farm, Malvin’s Close Farm, where he took care of the pit ponies.
Robin Gard, the County Archivist at the time, made this oral history recording with Mr Pattinson in 1974. Mr Pattinson had just retired from his job the year before and obviously enjoyed reflecting on his working life with Robin.
In the extracts that we have chosen here, he talks about the scope of his job and how many ponies he looked after. He goes into some detail about his day-to-day responsibilities and the process of getting a new pony down the mine. At the end of the podcast he describes the ponies’ holiday during the pit shut down in the summer and the problems that it caused.
Fascinating. I remember ponies at High Pit for their holidays.
😊