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Memories of an Usworth Miner
who played Piano in Local Public Houses
Ernie Guy (Snr)
Usworth Miner / Piano Player
Ernie Playing at the Boxing Day Engagement Party for Son Ernie and Fiancée Carol.
Venue: The Guy Family Home, Coach Road Estate - 26 December 1964.
Popular Songs of the 1950s - Ernie's Play List
MEMORIES FROM ERNIE'S SON
I found the above Play List in a pile of family papers. My Dad was a Miner at Usworth Colliery and was also a self-taught pianist.
He couldn't read music but was well known as a Pub Pianist in the 1950s and 60s.
Most pubs in and around Washington had a piano in the lounge. He would sit down at the piano, take the List from his top pocket and work his way through it; he would also take requests.
People would buy him drinks which would be lined up on top of the piano. I can remember him playing in The Ship at Seahouses when we went on a caravan holiday. The joint was rocking, and the customers wouldn't go home at closing time.
He could also accompany singers and change key if required. I still remember most of the tunes on Dad's List.
I can't recall the pubs Dad regularly performed in, but I know he frequented the Speculation Inn on Front Street and when we moved to the Coach Road Estate he regularly walked up to the Perseverance Arms at Springwell.
Ernie
[ Thanks to Ernie (Jnr) - Member of Washington History Society ]
A couple of Bevies later and everyone is thoroughly enjoying the Evening.
Note the Play List on the Music Stand.
Ernie (Jnr) & Fiancée Carol.
The Engagement Cake was made by Ernie's Mam, Sadie.
• • ◊ • •
Ernie Guy (Snr)
Soldier
Despatch Rider
Officer's Driver
Flame-Throwing Churchill Tanks of the 79th Armoured Division
destroy Belsen Concentration Camp - 1945.
MEMORIES FROM ERNIE'S SON
My Dad Ernie lived with his wife Sadie at 72 The Oval (her parents' house) and worked as a Miner at Usworth Colliery.
He joined the DLI at the outbreak of war and was sent to France but was soon back in England after being evacuated from Dunkirk, and having a friend killed next to him by enemy bombing on the beach.
After compassionate leave, now back with his regiment, he trained as a Despatch Rider and Driver and learned to maintain engines. Back in France two days after D-Day, he served as a lorry driver and later as an Officer's Driver.
Dad became part of the 79th Armoured Division on its advance through France, Holland and Germany, and was part of the force relieving Belsen Concentration Camp. I have letters from a grateful Dutch family thanking him for sharing his Army rations when the Dutch people were starving.
When demobbed, and back to the life of an ordinary Coal Miner, he never left the country again and didn't want to.
Ernie
[ Thanks to Ernie (Jnr) - Member of Washington History Society ]