I have mixed feelings about this article. I'm not sure whether it makes me happy or sad. It concerns a pony by the name of Pip. The point being that Pip was not just a pony, he was a pit pony. Pip, one of the last surviving pit ponies, has died at the ripe old age of 35. Pip died after 23 years at the Beamish Museum where he was one of the stars of the Colliery Village. Since 1986 he has had a good life, described by the Museum director, Richard Evans as a 'great character who never put a foot wrong'. During this time Pip appeared on television, was featured in children's books and posed for photographs with his adoring public at the Museum. For the last three years Pip has been 'training up' a new apprentice, a Shetland pony called Butterby Limelight. Having learned the ropes Butterby Limelight will carry on in Pip's wake. However, life has not always been easy for Pip. The grey pony started work in Blackburn Drift, Marley Hill Colliery before being moved on to Sacriston Colliery until production ceased in 1986. During his working life Pip would rarely have seen daylight and would have been worked hard for long hours. Clearly his later life was very different and he was able to enjoy himself, thus enabling him to live to a big age. As they say, hard work never killed anyone.
Pit ponies
It is recorded that pit ponies were used in Britain as long ago as 1750. As distances from pithead to coalface became greater they gradually took the place of women and child labour. In later years as mechanisation was introduced ponies were only used for shorter runs from the coalface to main roads. As recently as 1984, 55 ponies were still being used by the National Coal Board. At the peak in 1913 as many as 70,000 ponies were working underground in Britain. Shetlands were a breed commonly used because of their size, as small ponies no more than 12 hands high were needed. The British Coal Mines Act of 1911 decreed that ponies had to be 4 years old before going underground, they could work until their twenties. Only geldings and stallions were used. Donkeys were used in the late 19th Century but ponies were considered more sure footed. The ponies worked an eight-hour shift each day and could haul up to 30 tons of coal along the narrow gauge underground railway. They were stabled underground, inside the mine, only seeing daylight during the colliery's annual holidays. They were typically fed a high protein diet of chopped hay and maize. Not all ponies were well treated, but in the main they had to be well cared for to be able to do the strenuous work asked of them.
