Tinker

I grew up not far from the area in which this was filmed and to be honest that was about all there was to the film to hold my interest until the end. It looks like it was filmed in Easington, one of three coastal colliery villages along a 4 mile stretch of the East Durham coast. Easington was later the location for Billy Elliott and the blackened beach in front of the pit, visible at the end of the film, was used by the Who as the location for the cover shot of their album Who's Next. Also 'Tinker'' culminates in a brief action sequence filmed in and around what, as kids, we called the 'aerial buckets'. That setting is pretty much identical to that used for the final scenes in Get Carter though those particular 'aerial buckets' were 3-4 miles to the south at Blackhall. Miners in these coastal pits would often spend much of their working day at coal faces some miles out underneath the North Sea.

The main, perhaps only, fascination of the film is how much it takes for granted that it would be appropriate to send large numbers of boys in their early teens into what at that time would have been a particularly dangerous working environment. It is a sobering coincidence that, in 1951, only two years after this was made, an explosion at Easington killed 83 miners.

As for rating the film itself - well as a documentary it doesn't tell us much (not intentionally anyway).and as a drama it doesn't get off the ground, just sort of builds falteringly to a sort of climactic action scene. 5 out of 10 then for bravely putting a script in the hands of fairly rigid non-actors (sprinkled with what seem to be a couple of stage school kids) for what we can assume were the best of intentions. A failed experiment.

This film was Marshall's private project - costing £12000 and self-financed with securities on his house and a life policy - and first shown at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949 where it was apparently well-received - Dilys Powell gave it a favourable notice in the Sunday Times (i/d August 28 1949). However, it seems it never gained a general cinema release. There's a lukewarm review by CA Lejeune in The Observer (i/d Feb 5 1950) in which he queries the whole ethos of semi-documentaries. The 'star', who the paper names as Derek Lee (not Smith), was (according to the Daily Mail i/d January 31 1950) 'a 15-year-old product of a boys club in Walthamstow'. Filmed entirely on location in Easington.

All a bit Stakhanovite, although given Marshall's experience in the Soviet Union that's not surprising. Robert Burns, the Scots poet championed by one of the trainees, was also greatly admired in Soviet Russia!

I only got to see the last quarter of this fim which was a silly story about a gypsy boy getting taken on as an apprentice in Easington colliery in Durham's then extensive coalfield. It offfers many scenes of bygone mining villages in Durham and is very interesting from that point of view.

I'm 2 years older than the film and it is pretty sad to see how badly off the miners were and how they were treated by the owners and the new National Coal Board.

Film does portray the general decreptiude of the mining villages, the spoil heaps, intriguing shots of the great pithead wheels, red hot coke pouring out of the coke ovens to be transported to Durham's long gone steel works, and everything covered in coal dust.

Final scenes involve the boy running away and climbing into a tub being carried along the aerial cableway to the tower built in the sea where the tubs were tipped to pour spoil and missed coal into the sea.

History buffs will enjoy the film.

This is a historical curiosity - a 1949 "Semi-documentary, focusing on the training young boys receive before they are sent down the mines on their first job". Apparently using all real life people acting themselves except for the lead, "Tinker", the only person named in the cast list, apparently aged about 12 years old playing (very well) a boy who had run away from life in a tinker's caravan. How a 12 year old was accepted without parental permission and with no identification to join 14-17 year olds training on all aspects of mining including using explosives, is unexplained. The first half patchy and stilted with only the cinematography indicating much professionalism (it turns out that the cinematographer was an extremely gifted German émigré). However the pace picks up in the second half reaching a very exciting and memorable climax, coincidentally filmed at the same coastal spot seen in "Get Carter". The writer/director Herbert Marshall (not the actor) had an unusual background, receiving film training in the Soviet Union and for a time being a National Theatre Director. The film's purpose is unclear - was it for recruitment? However what happened to young Tinker was a worst nightmare come true, perhaps intended to separate off youngsters of a nervous disposition as unsuitable recruits. What this nightmare was is edge of the seat stuff!

Seen today on TALKING PICTURES TV a new UK 24 hour old film channel, Freeview Ch81

Now I was aware of the Bevan Boys who were sent down the pit during the Second World War in order to increase the capacity of the coal mines.However I was totally unaware,as documented in this film ,that boys as young as 12 were actually recruited after the war to work in the mines.There they are being taught how to prepare an explosive charge,and then at the end of the film we see them going down to the coal face.In between there is a lot of footage of the Durham Miners Gala,which is obviously quite historic.It is though difficult to understand what the point of the film was,particularly since there seems to be so little information available as to its production,The National Coal Board had its own production unit and produced some very professional documentaries and promotional films.So unlikely to be anything to do with them.So basically a historical curiosity.