Cathy 'comes home' as playwright puts her family history on stage

Willy Baker, front row right, with his wife Mary,  fellow 'wrecker Bill Muckle, centre, and Ollie Sanderson  after their release. (Picture The Working-Class Movement Library)Willy Baker, front row right, with his wife Mary,  fellow 'wrecker Bill Muckle, centre, and Ollie Sanderson  after their release. (Picture The Working-Class Movement Library)
Willy Baker, front row right, with his wife Mary, fellow 'wrecker Bill Muckle, centre, and Ollie Sanderson after their release. (Picture The Working-Class Movement Library)
A South Shields playwrite will have a very special guest when his portrayal of one of the General Strike’s most controversial incidents is performed in his home town.

Ed Waugh’s play, The Cramlington Train Wreckers, tells the story of how – seven days into the General Strike in 1926 - striking miners uncoupled a rail on the main line Edinburgh to London railway intending to derail a ‘blackleg’ coal train.

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Unfortunately for the perpetrators, it was a passenger train with 281 passengers.

The volunteer driver had been warned of trouble ahead and slowed down, meaning that when the engine and five carriages were derailed, the only injury was to one man's foot.

Cathy Bowles.Cathy Bowles.
Cathy Bowles.

​Eight local miners were each sentenced to up to eight years for their involvement in the event.

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The Cramlington Train Wreckers were eventually released early due to pressure from trade unions, politicians and the judiciary itself – who saw the original sentences as too harsh – and they returned home as heroes.

The play will be staged at The Westovian Theatre, in South Shields, on November 16, with Cathy Bowles – who is related to two of the eight men jailed – travelling from her home in Canada to see it.

Aged 28 at the time, Willy Baker was Cathy’s grandfather and was sentenced to four years – but released after two.

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South Shields playwright Ed Waugh.South Shields playwright Ed Waugh.
South Shields playwright Ed Waugh.

Another of the ‘wreckers’ – Tommy Roberts – was Cathy’s father’s uncle.

Ed said: “The derailment of the train caused national and international notoriety in 1926.

"The men were imprisoned for a total of 48 years after inadvertently derailing it during the nine-day General Strike.

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“No-one was killed and only one person was slightly injured in the mayhem that ensued after the derailment.”

He added: “We are delighted that Cathy is travelling from her home in Canada to see the play in South Shields.”

Cathy, 64, – who emigrated to Canada over forty years ago – said: "My cousin Christine Waugh, told me about this play, and I felt I had to travel home to see it.

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"Unfortunately, my grandfather died of a heart attack soon after being released in 1928, so his four young children, including my dad, never really got

to know him well.

"In my youth I'd go on school holidays to Cramlington to visit relatives and heard all the tremendous mining stories and, of course, about the derailment.

"It is my history, of which I am extremely proud."

The momentous event took place on May 10, 1926, after Bill Golightly, a mining union official told the strikers to "stop everything on wheels".

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Bill Golightly was the grandfather of Geordie actor Robson Green.

All the men were released early due to the enormous pressure and campaigning work done by the labour movement.

​The Cramlington Train Wreckers is touring the region in November.

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It opens at Cramlington Learning Village on Thursday, November 7, and can also be seen in Whitley Bay, Alnwick, Hexham, Gosforth, Gateshead, South Shields, Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle.

For details, go to www.cramlingtontrainwreckers.co.uk

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