I was particularly saddened to hear of
the death of John Cummings, whom I knew well in the period when we
were fellow MPs from 1987 to 2005. He continued as an MP for a further
five years after me.
It is not only that the MPs you get to
know the best are normally those who are part of your own intake, but
the only two times when John and I ever met outside of our parliamentary
years both help to illustrate our strong connections.
We first met when both of us were
seeking to be selected as candidates for the Labour Party, for the
different areas in which we lived. There was, however, a big
difference in our positions.
John was the leader of the Easington
District Council, an electrician at his local pit and fully active in
the National Union of Mineworkers in an area still dominated by pits.
He clearly already had the nomination sown up from the start. Yet the
surprising thing is that he became the only miner ever to
represent the coal mining constituency of Easington or its previous
Seaham Constituency. His Labour predecessors being Sidney Webb,
Ramsay McDonald (who then defected to National Labour), Manny
Shinwell and Jack Dormand. I always felt that Easington needed to be
served at some time by a miner. John turned out to be the
appropriate person.
In contrast, when I became MP for North
East Derbyshire I become the first non-miner ever to serve the
Constituency in the Labour interest. Although even with the pits in
rapid decline, my own selection as a candidate turned out to be a
much closer matter than John's.
When John used parliament to pursue the
interests of his constituents, I followed his work with a special
interest. For both my wife and I originate from the area covered by
the Easington Constituency. My wife's father having worked at the
coal mine at Shotton Colliery and my father at Easington Colliery.
During our period in parliament John
and I (along with my wife Ann) went to Nigeria as part of a
Commonwealth Parliamentary delegation. It was good to be with John
whom we felt so close to. One of our visits took us to a rather
isolated area with less than the normal first class hotel provisions.
There was no shower nor other bathing facilities (beyond a bucket) and John informed us
that he had had a “sparrow's bath”. It is a phrase (and practice) I have pinched
from him whenever I am in a rush or face similar difficulties.
Unfortunately, I only met up with John
once after we both left parliament. It was a somber but appropriated
occasion.
There had been a pit disaster at
Easington Colliery in 1951 when 83 men were killed (including two
rescue workers). My father was at the pit at the time, but was
working in a different seam to the one that was devastated. Local
memorial services were held in remembrance of this disaster in
2011. I met up again with John on this solemn occasion, which
included a march from a local Church of England service to the mass
grave at the Easington Colliery cemetery. It was led by the still
existing local colliery band, playing Gresford – as it had be done many
times during the funerals in 1951.
John had worked at Murton Colliery
which was a neighbouring pit. Although this memorial was to be our
final meeting and was built upon sad memories, it is also appropriate
that it is the last time we met. It showed that the political
path which he had followed was often a serious and somber business.
In many difficult circumstances he showed that he had the background,
values and abilities to seek to deliver improvements in the lives of
those he served.
It is a pattern for others to seek to
follow.
I also have a close personal debt to John. When my mother needed to be moved from accommodation in Donnini House at Easington into a care home (at the former residence of the pit manger), he helped in this process. This is a photo of him below, taken at Donnini House a decade later.
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