Geordie mining song translation please!

Subject: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: r.padgett
Date: 28 Mar 15 - 04:08 PM

Why me name is Jackie Robinson me name I Dee advance
I drive a little gallowa they call him little chance
Two greasy feet likewise a kickley back
And gannin ower the gannin boards he meks the chummins knack
We wor cummin aroond the torn Titty..........
Chancey wadent had on Titty..........
We cum roond the torn se quick we cum off the way at the switch
Ye bugger we smashed the debity's kist Titty.........


O yes different language I reckon

Ray

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 28 Mar 15 - 06:02 PM

More info, and more verses in This thread

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: r.padgett
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 04:18 AM

That was me starting point Nigel!!

Ray

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: r.padgett
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 04:29 AM

Why me name is Jackie Robinson me name I Dee advance
Well my name is Jackie Robinson I tell you in advance

I drive a little gallowa they call him little chance
I drive a little pony? they call him Little Chance

Two greasy feet likewise a kickley back
Two greasy? feet and a hump? back

And gannin ower the gannin boards he meks the chummins knack
and going along the roadway he makes the tunnel rattle??


We wor cummin aroond the torn Titty..........
we were coming around the turn (turning point in the mining tunnel)
Chancey wadent had on Titty..........
?
We cum roond the torn se quick we cum off the way at the switch
we were going so fast at the turn we came off the rail lines at the switching points

Ye bugger we smashed the debity's kist Titty.........
~~~~~ we smashed the deputy's (pit deputy's ?kist?)

Well i have tried to decipher above any help please? deputy's kist I thought was his stick but can find no reference to support looks like his "locker"

Ray

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST,Officer Bollix
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 05:33 AM

Looks like this could be of help to you, Mr Padget.

http://www.durhamintime.org.uk/coal_mining/cd_rom/images/glossary_of_mining_terms.pdf

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST,Officer Bollix
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 05:48 AM

Wadent had on = Wouldn't wait. Had on (had urn) or hold on, is still current in that sense on Tyneside. Chancy was obviously in a hurry, going too fast for the turn so he derailed the chummins at the points. For more on Chummins / Chumins / Tyum 'uns (literally : empty ones) see HERE.

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: r.padgett
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 07:43 AM

many thanks OB

Chummins empty tubs then eh!

Ray

always thought kist was the deputies stick, but its his "office" from the looks

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 07:48 AM

Think you've got all the info you'll need Ray- the word 'kist' (chest) is used in Scotland as well as the NE of England. Nothing to do with the thread, but if you don't know of it, there is an excellent Scottish website www.tobarandualchais.co.uk which is translated by the website (for non-NE English readers) as the 'Kist o Riches'.
It's an amazing collection of songs & music collected in Scotland over many years even if the odd Geordie melodeon player sneaks in here & there!

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 11:16 AM

O yes different language I reckon

A lot less different from Standard English than the language talked by politicians' tame economists.

We could have a long discussion about variant English, except that thanks to the aforementioned (double) collective waste of space, there's no reason for dialects to have words for these technical (but everyday) things any more. If Jack Robinson had a job now, it woyuld probably be a zero- hours contract in a call centre.

I blame the English.

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 11:52 AM

gallowa = galloway, a breed of cattle.

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 11:57 AM

Ooops- weel there was lso a Galloway pony, it seems-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galloway_pony

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: r.padgett
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 12:51 PM

yep many a slip twixt cup and lip

Ray

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 05:09 PM

There IS a breed of hardy Galloway cattle or 'beltie' which is the iconic type - black with a solid white belt although there is an all-black variety too- originating from that area of South west Scotland.

Nothing to do with the 'gallowa' pony- always spelt with a small 'g' - not a breed like Connemara or Dartmoor as far I am aware, but a generic term in Durham for a small, normally pit pony. I often wondered where the name came from, but people who know say there was an endless source of hardy small ponies in Galloway at one time & the name stuck.
I used to live in Galloway, but no-one there could expand on this.

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Mar 15 - 06:12 PM

The deputies when I was a miner carried a stick like a badge of office.
It was used for ramming the clay on top of the explosive charge in a drilled hole.
It was round and about 4'long, and slightly wider at the end to better fit the hole that contained the charge.

Another badge of office was that they had a tighter focus headlamp and a Davy Lamp to test for explosive gas/'firedamp' before firing.
The only people who were allowed to fire shots were deputies and shotfirers. Careful, responsible men.

Well over half a century ago, now, and a coalfield 200 miles away from there, but the standards were national.

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST,Officer Bollix
Date: 30 Mar 15 - 03:40 AM

To concur with Jim - gallowa is a generic term for pit pony as the Galloway breed is long extinct; see WIKI. Jez Lowe sings of gallowas grazing and the small ponies common in the fields around the old pit villages of Co. Durham are still referred to as gallowas by the locals (most recently in back of the Chester-le-Street Travelodge up at Chester Moor on the A167). In many old songs, pit ponies were simply called horses. Famously, and most anciently : The Collier's Rant; obscurely (and probably just as anciently given the imagery & terminology) : Ca' the Horse Me Marra.

Though cows were never used in collieries*, I did hear of a pig being introduced in a drift by way of a prank. Couldn't say what breed it was, though Pinterest gives us a Belted Galloway which looks more like a Hampshire to me...

* I'd REALLY love to proved wrong on this.

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Mar 15 - 03:47 AM

A "switch" is a set of points on a railway.
Not dialect.

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 30 Mar 15 - 11:16 AM

Officer- The pig in the link is not a Belted Galloway, it's a Saddleback- don't think there's such a thing as a 'Beltie' pig- we used to keep Saddleback pigs some years ago!

It would be very inadvisable to put a Belted Galloway of any variety into a colliery. They are very lively animals, and can jump fences when kept in a field- God knows what they'd do in close confinement- worthy of several more verses of 'Little Chance' I'm quite certain....

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST,#
Date: 30 Mar 15 - 11:25 AM

Lyrics here.

Subject: RE: Geordie mining song translation please!
From: GUEST,Officer Bollix
Date: 30 Mar 15 - 11:33 AM

I reckoned it was a Hampshire; you say Saddleback. I defer, having never kept pigs, though it remains a dream. Off course there are no Belted Galloway pigs - but that's what the Pinterest page labels it!

As an erstwhile pig-man on a folk forum, I'm guessing you'll know M'Gintie's Meal an' Ale? It's another one not to be attempted without a glossary but well worth the effort. The finest renderings are those by the late, great Davie Stewart, a recording of which can be heard over on the Lomax archive:

Davie Stewart : M'Gintie's Meal an' Ale