Our Newstead Interviewees continued

Keith Stanley, Gary Roe, Bob Collier, Brian Walker

By Ann Donlan

Keith Stanley

Photo:Keith Stanley

Keith Stanley

Eric Eaton for the Notts NUM Ex and Retired Miners

I was born on 22nd July 1950, in a little village called Nuncargate and I was the 2nd of three sons.  We lived in a little, quaint, two bedroomed terraced house at the end of the row.

It had got the old leaded ovens in and we had to dry the clothes on a clothes dryer you had to pull up and down from the ceiling.  I really enjoyed what I can remember of my childhood there.

At 5 I went to Kirkby Woodhouse Primary School – a very famous school because quite a few of the local cricketers who later went onto play for Nottinghamshire, went to that school – in particular Harold Larwood.  So from a very early age we were told it was a very historic school.

I enjoyed my early school life and got to know a lot of my school mates who are still my mates today.


Gary Roe

Photo:Gary Roe

Gary Roe

Eric Eaton for the Notts NUM Ex and Retired Miners

I am 55 and I was raised and lived in Annesley and still live in a house only 6 doors away from where I lived as a child.  Annesley was a pit village – we had a pit at the top of the street and I thought everyone had a pit at the top of the street until I went to Nottingham to my grandad’s when I realised Annesley was a bit different to everywhere else.

As a child we had lots of play areas at Annesley, woods and the warren and also if we dared do it to venture up to the pit at the top of the street and its surrounding railways.  We weren’t allowed to go there and so we used to just look and wonder what it was all about.


Bob Collier

Photo:Bob Collier

Bob Collier

Eric Eaton for the Notts NUM Ex and Retired Miners

My name is collier and I was born and bred to be a collier.  I was born in Newstead Colliery village in 1946 into a mining family. One of my granddad’s was a deputy at Bentinck Colliery and my other granddad was a back ripper at Newstead Colliery.  I had uncles who worked at Bentinck Colliery.

I was born into a mining family and thinking back to my childhood I knew I was going to work at the pit from a very early age.

Being born into a mining village was a wonderful experience for my generation.  We had everything that children wanted.  We’d got the football teams, we’d got the nearby woods, we’d got everything that made life happy for children.


Brian Walker

Photo:Brian Walker

Brian Walker

Eric Eaton for the Notts NUM Ex and Retired Miners

My adopted name is Brian Walker, but my real name was Brian Yeomans.  I was born on August 30th 1928. My mother came from the Carlisle area and my father, we think, came from the Dumfries area.  I was adopted by a family in Mancheser and grew up in Manchester.  My father was a tram driver and he had been severely wounded in the 1st World War.  My mother had come from a very politically active family, she was a suffragette and two of her brothers were members of the Communist Party.

The whole family used to go every week to things like the Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout.  I was too young to understand what was going on, I just thought it was a lot of people all together.

This page was added on 01/11/2012.

Comments about this page

Hi Brian, where you the NUM Secretary at the start of the 1984/85 miners strike , I was arrested outside the mine during a picket , two of us got taken to the nick at Hucknall then Guildhall in Notts , a Brian Walker , gave us quite a lot of assistance was you that man , Frank Yorkshire Main Colliery Edlington Doncaster

By frank arrowsmith
On 07/11/2013