Nicknames.

[John]

Here's some from my list of mine employment, of blokes I worked with.

Trotters.... He was also known as "FlipTop"
Igor. God where do they come up with names like that.. ;D ;D
Odd socks.
Snake.

We did have a mining crew with the nickname of "Jenny Craigers" They always worked through their meal break and had snap riding out at the end of the shift.


I'll try and recall some more as the days go by! Age coming into play here.

[dazbt]

Some Nicknames I remembered and have posted elsewhere, with the origins listed after;

1 WOOFWOOF
2 SHUTTLE
3 ERGO
4 PLODDER
5 ASSLE, WHISSLE and GUNNER a team of rippers.
6 BOB a senior overman whose real name was Colin
7 MUCK MAGNET
8 WING NUT
9 BIFF
10 NEIL
11 GERONIMO
12 DOTTY
13 BUNNY
14 BEANO
15 DERV
16 MINTOE, full title ‘One Eye and a Mintoe’
17 BILLY WHIZZ
18 BILLY DOG
19 BILLY PIG
20 BILLY LIAR
21 SLUGGER
22 RODEO
23 HOOK n EYE
24 FLICKA


1 Missed a day shift because his puppy dog ate his car keys
2 Had some tiles missing
3 Had no work in him
4 The speed at which he walked and worked
5 I shall, We will and Intending to.
6 Because he was a Big Orrible B****RD
7 A sweaty fitter
8 Had protruding ears.
9 Ex professional boxer.
10 Neolithic man look-alike …. allegedly.
11 Being short-tongued he couldn’t say it
12 Because he was
13 He had eight kids
14 He was a comic
15 Danced like a Whirling Dervish ….. and still does!
16 He had a glass eye
17 A soccer legend …. in his own mind
18 Bred and raced greyhounds
19 He didn’t breed or race pigs ….. he just looked the part
20 He’d been a pilot in WW11, a jungle fighting mercenary, SAS member, a millionaire and worked a loader-end button
21 His wife once beat him unconscious in a pub fight
22 Forever saying ‘Whoa, hold on a bit’
23 A Geordie deputy, whose standard reply to a water note request was ‘Hookaneye?’
24 A Pole who was forever declaring his friendship ….. (My friend Flicka ??)

[columbo]

Ones I can remember are as follows.

Glass Back
Dizzy feet
Mr Wonderful
Bomb Thrower
Rosy Nose
Tanker Ted
Gonda Neck
Bongo
Crow Nose
Bunker
Ferrit
Dobbin
Five to Five

I Cant believe there’s not more! Surly I have forgotten some, mine was Columbo of course

[shropshirebloke]

Happy
Scarecrow
Action Man/Toy Soldier (too long in the army....)
Bald Eagle
Black Rabbit
Pussell
Froggy - these days he could make a fortune as a Gollum (Lord of The Rings) impersonator. Never more than a few feet away from copies of his favourite reading matter ("Spank" magazine - don't ask....). On the Friday after the 1979 General Election he spent the entire dayshift gobbing off about how he'd "voted for the winning side" - then asked if someone could scrub his back in the baths. Never has a stiff-bristled yard broom been put to such good use so quickly.
Ditcher
Fishbox
Number One (his check no. at his previous pit, but also because he was, and is, a great bloke)
Jesus (OK, I used to have hair.....)

[John]

You lot have kindled memories!
Boulby Mine
JC, short for Jesus Christ, he was a fitter, had long hair was tall and thin and always had a long stick to walk with! He hated that nickname!
An interesting story about this feller, day shift and he was sat in the bait room, south east district, doing the crossword in the daily paper. Under Manager in charge walked in, "WTF are you doing"
JC looked up and said "WTF does it look like I'm doing"??
U/M " Haven't you anything to do"?
JC " Yep, loads"
U/M Then get the F out here and get it done"?
JC "OK"
JC proceeded into the district and danger tagged all the machines, which kind of upset the district mining supervisor who was an ex NCB Overman with a class 2 ticket. He told the U/M to piss off out of his district and never come back again!
He then asked JC to remove all the danger tags and get his butt back into the bait room forthwith!

The was another fitter who had long hair, he turned up one afternoon in the bait room of the east panel with his mate after a hair cut. Some one lifted his helmet off and said "Hey, wingnut and his mate springwasher"!

[dazbt]

What about nicknames given to individual collieries? Sometimes the original owners names carried forward long after a change of ownership or official title, or in the purest sense of the word, nicknames given locally by the miners themselves, for example in Barnsley over the years we have had two separate pits known as The Sludge and one older pit known historically as “Sh*tters Hills”. Many of the mid 19th century shafts were given family member’s names, the owner often naming the shafts after their own children, the three shafts of Rothwell Colliery were named Nelson, Rose and Fanny after the original owner’s children I believe. The overall colliery name used for many years after, up until its closure in fact, was The Fanny Pit. Everyone local simply called it Fanny …………. which then leads me to a true story; around about 1968 I worked as a fitter employed by the NCB Barnsley Area, my job role was the build, installation and repair of coal face cutting machines, through the range of chain pre-cutters, shearers, trepanners and anything in between, as long it was a machine that cut coal, my initial remit was to work on machines installed or to be installed on coal faces at collieries within the Barnsley Group. I was on twenty four hour standby for any shearer breakdowns within the area and a call out one night around 10.30pm came as a bit of a change in so much it was to attend Rothwell pit, quite a distance outwith of the Barnsley Group, a pit I had never worked at previously. I was collected by an NCB Barnsley Area driver in a Landrover, chucked my pit gear in the back and set off in the general direction of Wakefield and Leeds, the driver’s limited knowledge of Rothwell was that it was situated somewhere between the two places. On reaching Wakefield around 11.0pm, the driver stopped and asked a couple of likely lads turning out of a pub, for directions to Rothwell, after a couple of stumbles and beer bubbled directions they pointed out the road to Rothwell, ten minutes later we entered the main road village of Rothwell, we drove through it and turned and drove back through it from signposted end to end, no sign of a pit, no headgear, no NCB sign, not so much as an inkling of a pit lane or pit head building. We drove all the way around an housing estate and saw no one or anything that gave us a clue to the pits location, as we got back onto the main road, there was a guy just about walking on his knees obviously on his weary way home after a few bevies, the driver pulled up as close as he dared to this fellah, I opened the window and asked for directions to Rothwell Colliery;
“Thish ish Roffwell” he says
“Yeah, but where is the colliery“, ses I;
“I dunno” ses he,
at this point the driver leans across me and ses;
“Pit, yer plank, where’s Rothwell pit?”
“Roffwell pit?, niver heard of it” ses the local, and then suddenly his bulb lit, “Ahhh, I know, it’s Fanny yer after innit?”
The driver in classic Barnsley ‘Never miss a chance at creating humour’, ses;
“Well I might manage one later but first priority is ter get this lad to a shearer breakdown at the pit”

We followed the directions to ‘Fanny‘, turned right and found the pit hidden in a hollow only a hundred yards off the main road.

So, what about other pit nicknames as well?

[John]

The only odd named one I can think of was Shonkey pit near Bullwell on the outskirts of Nottingham. Long closed when I entered the industry same time as you Daz.
There's many ideas as to how it got it's name, but the most interesting and probably the correct one was to do with it's winding engine. An old steam loco mounted upside down! I think it's correct name was Newcastle Colliery after it's owner the Duke of Newcastle.

There were many pits around Eastwood during the late 1800's until the early 1900's, not sure if any of them had nicknames.

[aardvark]

once worked with a fitter who had more nicknames than most, crumpet kite and pikelet face because he used to have acne, cardiac kid and peter palpitations cos he had an heart murmour, hobbit foot because he had ugly feet.

[marillion2]

We had a trainee manager, Chris Finch, at Donisthorpe in the early 80's, we called him "Hotfoot", never seen a bloke go round the district so quick.

[Mick]

Wot about Sunshine pit (Wheldale) every time sun was out so was pit.
When i first went there it tuck me 7 week to get a full week in lol.
Mick

[fishy]

at Frickley we had

The muppets ,,,,, a heading team

The all blacks ,, a salvage team and management blue eyed boys worked every weekend


Sweetfeet , an alcoholic undermanager you could smell his feet six bay away in the pit head baths

ET , yes he resembeled the alien and had a neck just like him every time he got a phone call the shout would go up "ET phone home "

Bella , an onsetter that looked like bellalugossi

Ten to two feet , self explanatery

Nookie bear , he had eyes like the bear in question

Clarence , a crosseyed undermanager with eyes like the lion from Daktari

Tom the bomb , dunno why his real name was Tom jones

Pot head , a paddy driver who had the worst wrap over you could imagine

Insane wayne , self explanatery

Cod head , a haulage lad with a massive head

Jabber Jaw , could talk a glass eye to sleep

Injun Joe , a bloke called joe who looked like an injun lol

Giy , looked like the kid off Tarzan

Tattoo , Deputy , looked like the dwarf off fantasy island he used to get shouts of the plane boss the plane lol ;D

[John]

There was an Assistant Manager at Clifton who had a lisp and effeminate voice, so he got the nickname of Cynthia. Woe betide anyone caught calling him that, five quid fine!
I was in pit bottom near the back of a long line of blokes waiting for the ride out, when "Cynthia" walked by heading for the shaft, someone shouted with a mock lisp "Hello Cynthia"
He stopped dead in his tracks, spun round and shouted "Who said that", I think the whole shift wanted to burst out laughing, but due to the possiblility it would cost them a fiver, all you heard was stifled sblack persons. ;D ;D ;D

[Mick]

There was a bloke at Wheldale called Duck a Do,he was supposed to go shotting ducks but all he shot was woodys.
He could tell a good story aswell,He came to work one day and told us he shot this rabbit
and when he picked it up there was a temple gates ticket under it for Saturday.
Guess wot it was the wright way round.

[limey]

When I was at Donisthorpe there were two Erics on the face - and everybody was referred to as "owd" so-and-so (Owd Fred, Owd Dave, etc.) So, with inimitable miner wit, the original (and older) Eric was referred to as "owd Eric", and I was referred to as "owd young Eric"!

Hey, it worked!

[inbye]

Jul 17, 2008 17:00:59 GMT -5 limey said:

When I was at Donisthorpe there were two Erics on the face - and everybody was referred to as "owd" so-and-so (Owd Fred, Owd Dave, etc.) So, with inimitable miner wit, the original (and older) Eric was referred to as "owd Eric", and I was referred to as "owd young Eric"!

Hey, it worked!

;DThat's brilliant

At Springwood a loading point bloke was called "egg on" (egg on legs)

Our deputy was "ten to two" cos of how his feet pointed in those ribbed wellies.

But the best was a day overman, Bob Holden. He was christened "skippy" as he seemed to travel everywhere at the speed of that bleedin' kangaroo...

[Sam from Kent]

We had one short but stocky ripper who was called Tarzan, but then a ring plate blew out and injured his arm so from then on he was called "Broken Wing"

Another fitter developed Spondelitus so his nick name was "Spongey"

We had a shift engineer came to Tilmanstone from Betteshanger, he was called "Black Cat" because if we had a black cat at Tilmanstone he would have had a blacker one at Betteshanger!


We had an Under-manager, Dr. Mick Richards, who was small and had NHS type glasses so he was called the "Milky Bar Kid"

One Puffler was called Me-an as when there was overtime it would always be Me-an two others

[Sam from Kent]

An undermanager called Danny La Rue (He was the one who took a comb underground with him!)

Freeman, Hardy and Willis - a ripping team

Oiley Doiley - Dave Doel forman fitter

Albino - a fair haired foreman electrician

Neville Heath (After the Murderer) - An electrician called Anthony Heath

Jimmy no legs - a very short Overman

Jimmy no arms - his lazy son

[Sam from Kent]

Green Side up an Irish electrician

The Judge - Colin Rogers, a magistrate

Cods Eyes - Pit Bottom Electrician

The Goat - Johnnie Baldwin - (don't know why)

Plenty of Time - Gordon Roper - foreman electrician

Wire It - Ron Paton Foreman fitter

Esiah - a deputy with one eye higher than the other