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Pitmatic: Talk of the North East Coal Field

GRIFFITHS, BILL

$24.99

ISBN: 9781904794257 Categories: ,

Temporarily out of stock

This is more than just a collection of mining terms. It is an heartfelt attempt to bring together the words spoken by miners of the North East pits and how they relate to the wider language-world of the region and its literature of story and song. Pitmatic brings together pit literature its words, jokes, stories and songs that is fast disappearing and helps attest to the remarkable vitality of the region s dialect and the inventiveness of its speakers. The last major mine in the North East region closed in 2005 and with it went away of life. Through dialect words, humour, stories and songs Pitmatic: The Talk of the North East Coalfield will help you to understand the working and everyday lives of miners. Miners who provided fuel, helped sustain an economy, consolidated communities and created a unique and rich regional culture. Bill Griffiths is the author of the critically acclaimed A Dictionary of North East Dialect and Stotty n Spice Cake: The Story of North East Cooking. Pitmatic is his heartfelt attempt to bring together the words spoken by these miners and their families and how they relate to the wider language-world of the region and its literature of story and song. The welcome arrival of the book Pitmatic captures a unique dialect of Northern coalmining. Pitmatic is a language within a language developed by coal miners as their own form of communication both below and above ground. First noted in the 1870s Pitmatic is, with the closure of the coalfield, fast disappearing. Bill Griffiths has rescued for posterity this distinctive cultural tradition . Bill Lancaster, historian and Director of the Centre for Northern Studies.

AUTHOR:
Before his untimely death in 2007, Bill Griffiths was an unlikely champion of the North East, its people and heritage. Born in Middlesex, he read history at UCL before graduating in 1969. A former Hell's Angel, Bill was at the center of the British poetry revival. He published out of his own small press, writing political pamphlets and essays on the arts in society, poetry and translating Gilgamesh, Romany, Welsh and Anglo-Saxon works. After gaining a PhD in Old English he fled 'Thatcherite London' and settled in Seaham where he embraced the northern way of life.

ISBN: 9781904794257
Author: GRIFFITHS, BILL
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 14/07/2007
RRP: $24.99
Pages: 280
Dimension: 208mm X 208mm
Imprint: McNidder and Grace