I’ve a lot more memories so I will put some together for you soon; two which should be of interest.

1. "Bowes Railway" anyone interested in coal mining must know about Bowes Railway, I grew up close to Bowes Railway, the track was a 5 minute walk from my home, when I lived up north, when I was a kid, it led up to Springwell Colliery. It was a favourite and a very dangerous area for kids in the 50's, we used to put pennies and halfpennies on the line and wait for the waggons to go over them, it made them twice the size, if my parents had know, I'm sure I would have never done it again!

2. I was born and lived not far from the pit in earlier years, so I've got you another story about what happened to the Springwell Pit Ponies that grazed in a field in front of my old home and what happed to them after the night the German Bombers flew over during World War 2, its what my mother witnessed when she was a girl. Will forward the memories soon.

Emigrated to Pennsylvania , USA

Most of my ancestors were coal miners, going back to the early 1700’s in Durham on both sides of my parents family my grandfather Joseph and my great grandfather Thomas came from very large families, some of their brothers and there in-laws emigrated to Pennsylvania USA and worked the coal mines over there like many other coal mining families.

A brother in law of my great uncle Robert Summerson, who was also a Durham miner that emigrated to Pennsylvania had an accident down a coal mine, they carried him out the mine and rushed him home, he had crushed his leg, in order to save his life, they laid him on the kitchen table and cut off his leg with out an anaesthetic, he did survive to live on, his surname was Franklin, from the Castle Eden area of Durham not far from my grandparents village.

Basically, my great uncle Robert married Marina Franklin and his sister Annie married Marina’s brother John and both families emigrated to USA.

My great grandfather’s brother George, also a coal miner who was born in Kirk Merrington village, close to the village of Coundon where my great grandfather and grandfather lived, he married and managed to get a job as a manager of a gold mine in South Africa, we worked and saved hard while over there for a few years, then sailed back home to England, he then took his wife and kids to New Brunswick Canada for a new life, working as a coal miner and later as a farmer of a small farm, his family got bigger and they decide to emigrate to Maine, USA, the family went by ship, but on a stormy night they lost 2 children overboard. While in Maine he became a potato farmer, he loved to sing, dance and he played the fiddle, his grandson Harold told me there was a storm one day and George went out in the fields to check his crops and was struck by lightning, what an awful way to go, after many years of researching my family tree, the surname name Summerson in Maine, USA came to be, through my great grandfathers brother George now all distant cousins, this is just one of many stories I have uncovered told by long lost cousins I’ve found.