Tommy Armstrong

Biography

Thomas Armstrong (1848–1920), known as Tommy Armstrong, was an English poet, singer-songwriter and entertainer dubbed "The Pitman Poet" and "The Bard of the Northern Coalfield". Writing largely in the Geordie and Pitmatic dialects, he was renowned for his ability to chronicle the lives of the mining communities in and around Stanley in County Durham and to commemorate mining disasters.

Early life

Tommy Armstrong was born at 17 Wood Street in Shotley Bridge on 15 August 1848. His father, Timothy Armstrong, a miner originally from Hamsterley, and his mother, Mary (née Wilson), from Wigton, had married in Easington in 1842. Tommy was the second of five children.
Where and at what age he first worked down a mine is unclear, with varying statements in the local press (Medomsley Colliery, aged eight) and by his eldest son (East Tanfield Colliery, aged nine). Official records show him employed at Addison Colliery in 1866, first as a putter, and then as a hewer. According to his younger brother, he then worked at East Tanfield Colliery from late 1866 for several years. The 1901 Census shows him as a "Coal Worker Underground", and later records refer to him as a miner or coal-miner. His death certificate records him as a "Retired Colliery Shifter".

Later life

In 1869, on Christmas Day, Tommy Armstrong married Mary Ann Hunter, who was 16, at Gateshead Register Office. They had 14 children: eight died young. Mary died in 1898, and in 1901, Armstrong married Ann Thompson, a widow, at Tanfield Parish Church.
He lived for the most part in Tanfield Lea, though from 1902, for a few years, he moved to Whitley Bay to start and run a business as a newsagent. In 1906, he had an address in Ouston. In 1911, he was living with his widowed eldest child, Mary, and her children in Tanfield Lea; his second wife resided in Chester-le-Street with another daughter from his first marriage.
He died on 30 August 1920, aged 72, in Tantobie, and is buried in the churchyard of Tanfield Parish Church.

Style

Songs in domestic settings predominate in Armstrong's repertoire. He also wrote many concerning the life, work and
struggles of miners in the pits, and several disaster ballads. The sociologist Huw Beynon states that what makes Armstrong stand out from other coalfield songwriters is his "impish irreverence" and "imaginative devilishness", with "nothing cloying or sentimental" in his descriptions of mining life, while the folklorist A. L. Lloyd, according to Beynon, thought Armstrong wrote "as a herald of the dawn, who welcomes the day with a cock crow". The folklorist Roy Palmer noted the playfulness, sympathy, and humour in his works. As Armstrong himself put it:

When ye're the Pitmen's Poet, an' looked up to for it, wey, if a disaster or a strike or a murder goes by wi'oot a sang fre ye, they say: "What’s the matter wi' Tommy Armstrong? Has someone druv a spigot in him an' let oot a' the inspiration?" Me aad sangs hev kept me in beer, an' the floor o' the public bar hes bin me stage for forty years. Aw'd sing, we'd drink, aw'd sing, we'd drink agen, sangs wi'oot end, amen.
Folk-songs and the musical forms associated with music hall performances both influenced Armstrong's compositions. The stage was most strongly reflected in the lyrics, and the folk-song influence most clearly evident in the melodies he directed his songs be sung to – he rarely wrote his own tunes, and in most cases made up the words with an existing one in mind: many were urbanised versions of folk melodies. In particular, Armstrong loved and was influenced by the Irish ballads that were popular amongst coal-miners in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially the genre dubbed "Come-all-ye": these were usually written in lines of 14 syllables, with tunes in 68 time, and often in the Dorian or Mixolydian mode.

Domestic songs

Armstrong directed that this be sung to the tune of The Pride of Petticoat Lane. The version below was collected and transcribed by A. L. Lloyd in Tanfield in August 1951.

Workplace songs

Armstrong directed that this be sung to the tune of Robin Tamson's Smiddy, a ballad written by Alexander Rodger. The version of the first verse below was collected and transcribed by A. L. Lloyd in Tanfield in August 1951.

Disaster ballads

Armstrong wrote this song to the tune of the parlour-song Go and Leave Me If You Wish It, and sang it, within days of the disaster, at the local Mechanics' Hall. A. L. Lloyd collected and transcribed a version of the first verse below, noting "As sung (one verse only) by R. Sewell of Newcastle (June 1951)".

According to Vicinus (1974), The Trimdon Grange Explosion exemplifies the later style of nineteenth-century pit disaster poem, with the traditional tone of lament accompanied by elements of reportage.

Patter

Some of Armstrong's works incorporate patter – "passages of prose ... to be spoken in between the verses and chorus, both of which are meant to be sung." An example is Th' Borth E Th' Lad, one of his first poems:

Aa can mind that mornin aa was born as if it was the neet. Th' pits was aal idle the next day – because it was Sunda; but ye wadn't thowt it was Sunda' in wor hoose. There was that much tea an' ginger-beer drunken, aa was forced to stop the tap. Dolly Potts got tite an' flung a saucer at Betty Green, but it missed hor an' catched me reet between the eyes an' the mooth, an' aa've ad a greet lump there iver since. But we seun maid hor an ootside passenger, an' we enjoyed worselves wi singen –

A version of Th' Borth E Th' Lad was recorded by Bert Draycott, a miner, in the 1970s.
Armstrong wrote one song, Th' Skeul Bord Man, in the form of a short play featuring the voices of a father, mother, son, and an inspector from the son's school:

Recordings

From 1962 onwards, "The Trimdon Grange Explosion" was recorded by many artists in studio albums and compilations, including the 1993 version of The Iron Muse.
In 1965, Topic Records released Tommy Armstrong Of Tyneside, an LP with 14 of his songs, with an insert containing a biography and notes by A. L. Lloyd. A CD version was released in 1997.
Reviewing the original release, The Gramophone's critic considered the album "beautifully done, with gusto, understanding and musical ability" and "a well recorded, well documented selection of songs" with "some excellent singing by Johnny Handle, Louis Killen and Maureen Craik."
No recordings of Armstrong himself are known.

Memorials

Stanley Town Council unveiled a plaque commemorating Tommy Armstrong at Tanfield Church on 11 June 2016. Part of the ceremony was held next to Tommy Armstrong's two memorial headstones: the original, and one dedicated in 1986.