Commemorating the most momentous nine days in the history of the British working class
Playwright Ed Waugh explains the inspiration for his play The Cramlington Train Wreckers about the 1926 General Strike, which due to trade union support, including PCS and NIPSA, will be performed at L/Derry Playhouse on 8 July and The Waterfront Hall, Belfast, on 9, July, before transferring to Newcastle Theatre Royal on 12 July.
My class create the wealth and have fantastic stories – but the education system only focuses on kings and queens.
This year marks the centenary of the 1926 General Strike – the most momentous nine days in the history of the British working class.
It was the biggest rupture in society since the civil wars of the 1640s and a time when a huge industrial war could have spilled into a revolutionary situation, emulating the historical events of Russia only nine years earlier, in 1917.
Contrary to the capitalist press who constantly perpetrate the lies that workers go on strike at the drop of a hat (“because toilet paper isn’t the right colour”), a strike is the last resort: when negotiations have broken down and there is no middle ground.
In 1926 the Tory prime minister Stanley Baldwin said: “All workers must take a cut in wages.” In the “national interest”, of course.
Massive wage cut
A small number of pit owners, at the stroke of a pen, demanded Britain’s 1.2 million miners take a further 40% wage cut to their meagre wage (already cut by 40% in 1921).
The union Triple Alliance of miners, transport workers and engineers was invoked at a minute to midnight on May 3, 1926, and on May 4 – the first full day of the general strike – the country ground to a halt. Nothing moved. There were 5.5 million trade unionists out of a population of 40 million people.
The most notorious incident of that societal unrest took place on 10 May – day seven of the general strike – when miners from Cramlington in Northumberland inadvertently derailed the Flying Scotsman when they uncoupled a rail on the mainline Edinburgh to London railway. Rumours had circulated that a scab coal train was coming down the line. The intention was to take up a rail then wave down the blackleg coal train. Unfortunately, the 40 or so young perpetrators inadvertently derailed a passenger train carrying 281 people.
Thankfully, the volunteer driver had been warned of trouble ahead and slowed down, meaning when the engine and five carriages were derailed no one was killed. The only injury was minor, to a man's foot. Most people were treated for shock and bruises, continuing their journey from Newcastle.
Eight Northumberland miners were sentenced to a total of 48 years for their involvement in the highly controversial event that made national and international headlines. The "wreckers" were eventually released early due to pressure from the trade union rank and file, grass roots political activists, politicians and the judiciary itself, who saw the original sentences as too harsh.
They were regarded as working class heroes. The incredible 30-minute 1969 BBC film Yesterday’s Witness: The Cramlington Train Wreckers is an interview with the four surviving wreckers. It is on the internet; a must-watch.
All four of them were still adamant, 43 years later, that they had to do something like they did to get people to know the abject poverty in which they and other miners were living.
Bill Muckle, who was imprisoned for four years, wrote his excellent autobiography in 1981. It’s title? No Regrets. What does that tell you about the heroism of these selfless workers.
It was Bill’s book and Margaret Hutcherson’s Let No Wheel Turn that were the inspiration for my play about this incredible story of working class unity, solidarity and community.
As a dramatist it is gold dust. There’s humour and despair. It is about humanity and working-class experiences in the face of brutal capitalism.
A carnival of reaction
After the General Strike was sold out unconditionally by the TUC leaders, a “carnival of reaction" against the trade unions followed. The Cramlington miners were part of that reaction: imprisoned 330 miles away in Maidstone Kent among murderers and sex offenders and allowed only one visit a year, for one hour.
The story of the Cramlington train wreckers is one of high dramatic tension and has become an important part of North East folklore and British history, although largely forgotten today.
Lest we forget.
For further details about the Cramlington incident and the Northern Ireland and Newcastle Theatre Royal shows in July visit www.cramlingtontrainwreckers.co.uk