FAME FOR MINER

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 189, 27 August 1937, Page 3

FAME FOR MINER

Earl Baldwin Helps Young Writer SUCCESSFUL NOVEL Diiring the anxious hours of erisis which preeeded the abdication of Kiug Edward YHI., Mr. Baldwin (as he then was) .paused to consider the work of one of the humblest subjects who was • following the drama. * * The Breinier was/ f acing the sterne'si test'of his care'er, snatching sleep at'.intervals and' spending whole nights hurrying ' between Fort Belvedere, Downing Street, Buekingh'am Palace and Marlborough House. Yet he found time to read an article written by Mr. George Tomlinson, a Derby coalminer. And so impressed was the Prime Minister that he felt it his duty, even in the midst of erisis, to help this unknown writer. He sent the article to a literary friend, from whom George Tomlinson accepted the advice given him. He wrote a boolc, and the book, "Coalminer, ' ' just published, is already a success. ^ Mr. Tomlinson, 32 years old aud over six feet tall, is held to have written one of the greatest books of its kind • f or a deeade. "Good heavens,." said Earl Baldwin when he heard about the book, "I hope we shall not malce the young man lose his head." There is no fear of-that. When I talked with George Tomlinson to-day I realised he is not the type of man to become eonceited, said a writer in the. Sunday Chronicle recently. .He has left the mine now, bnt his memories are so vivid that sometimes they hurt. . "I worked in numerous mines. in the Worksop distriet, where . my home has been," he said. " A ; fle.w shillings a day , was all I received, and I worked over 12 hours a day. "In 1926 the general strike found me ou,t with the miiiers, I .was one of only two young miners during that period who did aetive work in -Worksop. for tlie .Government. Mine. consisted .of peeling potatoes.in the marlcet-place to provide food for local children, many of whom were badly off for* something to eat. "For a long time I was unemployed. My time was spent iu public speaking and in reading anything, everything. T.hen a political orgnaiser in the East Midlands heard me at a public meeting and suggested" I should take up political work as a career." At a political college George Tomlinson met Arthur Bryant, the author,' who beeame His guide and mentor in the Ijbrary. He complained that there was none of Byron's -..'orks on the shelves. Mr. Bryant wondered what a young ex-miner could want with Byron, and pressed Tomlinson to show him soine of his own essays. "li it had riot been for Mr. Bryant 's constaiit driviiig I would never have finished the book," he added. "To-day my father and brothcrs regard xne as the black shcep of the family. Often I.have flerce arguments with m'y father, but we respeet each otlxer 's point of view. "My father is 6ft. 2in.-tall, weighs 17st., and Could bend two 6in. hails or craclc a nut with his bare hand." Mr. Tomlinson has already planned a second book. It will be a romance, with a colliery village in Sherwood Forest as the setting. • '