William Feaver explains how his book ‘Pitmen Painters’ inspired a new play at the National
‘It means knaaing what to de.’
This is Jimmy Floyd speaking, his Ashington accent spelt out, his words — more dialect than dialectic — written by Lee ‘Billy Elliot’ Hall. In Hall’s The Pitmen Painters, newly transferred from Live Theatre, Newcastle, to the National Theatre, the ‘Jimmy Floyd’ character is more canny, more droll, than the man I remember from 37 years ago when I first came across the Ashington Group.
The actual Jimmy, retired after 60 years down the pit, had a perky air and a slight speech impediment. ‘One time I used to paint drab sort of pictures,’ he told me. ‘But now I like a bit colour in them.’ By way of example, his ‘Miner’s Hobby’, done in enamel paint, shows the allotments off Woodhorn Road, cabbages plumping and leeks coming on a treat behind the red-and-orange-striped pigeon cree where a pigeon feeds from its owner’s hand.
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