Thomas (Tommy) Armstrong (1849-1919) was a true poet of the people whose verses, published originally in the form of broadsheets that he sold round public houses for a penny a time, chronicled the life and hard times of the Durham mining community towards the end of the nineteenth century. Known as the Pitman Poet, he achieved a reputation in particular for writing songs about mining disasters, of which ‘The Trimdon Grange Disaster’ is the best known.

‘The Oakey Strike Evictions’ describes the repressive measures taken by the coal owners of the time in the face of industrial unrest. When miners at the Oakey pit in the Northwest Durham Coalfield, long subject to dangerous working conditions, low pay and long hours, went on strike in 1885 the owner did not hesitate to call in a force of hired goons (the ‘candymen’ of the song), to evict the miners from their homes (which were, of course, owned by the colliery). They were led by the town crier (‘Johnny whe carries the bell’).

The words were set to a jaunty tune, which works well to counterpoint the anger and contempt of the lyrics. Note that the prime focus of this anger and contempt is not so much the bosses, who are cheerfully consigned to hell with no particular animus, because the boss class were ever thus and you wouldn’t expect anything different from them, but the underlings, the candymen and the town crier, who come from the same social class as the miners yet let themselves be used as tools of oppression. The same spirit informs another song of the period, the viciously anti-scab ‘Blackleg Miner’, probably best known as sung by Steeleye Span on their album ‘Hark The Village Wait’.

The Oakey Strike Evictions were long remembered in the north-east, with a long smouldering resentment that burst into flame again during the miners’ strike in the 1980s.

Note: ‘candyman’ does not here have its modern American sense of ‘drug pusher’. A candyman at the time could simply be one who sold sweets, and could also be a rag-and-bone man who would give sweets in exchange for recyclable materials that he collected on a cart. (Now there’s a trade that’s disappeared, but when I was a child in the nineteen-fifties we still had a rag-and-bone man come up the road periodically with his horse and cart, for housewives to bring out their unwanted textiles or scrap metal and perhaps get sixpence or a shilling in return). But the candyman of the poem is simply a hired thug, often drawn from dockside labourers in the large towns, the implication of the name being that they would do anything for a handful of sweets.

The Oakey Strike Evictions

It was in November and I never will forget
When the polisses and the candymen at Oakey Hooses met
Johnny the Bellman, he was there, he was squintin’ roond aboot
And they put three men on every door to turn the miners oot

And what would ah de if ah had the power mesel’?
Ah would hang the twenty candymen and Johnny whe carries the bell

They went from hoose to hoose and then they put things on the road
But mind they didn’t hurt themselves, carrying heavy loads
One would carry the poker oot, the fender or the rake
But if they carried two at once, it was a great mistake

Oh what would ah de if ah had the power mesel’?
Ah would hang the twenty candymen and Johnny whe carries the bell

Some of these dandy candymen were dressed up like a clown
Some had hats without a slice and some of them without a crown
And one of them that was with them, aye, I’ll swear that he was worse
Cos every time he had to speak, it was a terrible farce

And what would ah de if ah had the power mesel’?
Ah would hang the twenty candymen and Johnny whe carries the bell

Well next up comes the masters and I think they should be shamed
Depriving wives and families of their comfortable homes
And when you shift from where you live, I hope you go to hell
Along with the twenty candymen and Johnny who carries the bell

And what would ah de if ah had the power mesel’?
Ah would hang the twenty candymen and Johnny whe carries the bell

Thomas Armstrong