The constables woke during their night camp out on the wild heights of Bollihope. There was mist everywhere and over everything and the sound of beasts breathing nearby mixed with the wind that drove at them across the moor. An owl tooted and then a fox barked \u2013 or was it a wild dog? \u2013 and a pheasant panicked and was gone, slaughtered with one bite. The constables set off down towards St John\u2019s Chapel using only dim, guttering candle lights to see the path and the west wind to give them their direction.<\/p>\n
Once on the road they crept along in a tight group, not waking any villagers until they reached the pub. Not a place of rest for these already weary and hungry men but their rendezvous with the keeper and publican Joseph Dawson. A few attempts with stones at his window woke the man who appeared in the doorway and silently pointed to a house across the road where the job was to be carried out. The arrest of the poachers, the Siddle brothers.<\/p>\n
The constables, after a look up and down the street and a short conference to make their plan, set off a sudden and terrifying commotion of crashes at the Siddle family\u2019s front and back doors and shouts of \u201cCome out!\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re surrounded and under arrest!\u201d \u201cWe know who you are!\u201d \u201cLet\u2019s have those thieving Siddles out here!\u201d<\/p>\n
But the sounds of splintering wood in the street was joined above by other cracks and crashes as the two Siddles began to break through their own roof and throw down stone slabs and curses onto the men below! Their attempted rooftop escape ended when the two stumbled and fell amid more tumbling stones and were grabbed by the constables. Their shouts of pain and struggle were ended with the clank and jangle of manacles and chains being clapped into place.<\/p>\n
Once horses had been commandeered and the captives further bound, with ropes to each other, and made to walk alongside, the fearful gang made their way out of the village. They were startled when behind them they heard the blast of a horn by Mary Siddle to raise the alarm but the constables felt their progress was still secret as they had by then got down to the river and were heading down the dale by the riverside path. And when they reached Stanhope they felt sure enough to stop for rest and so broke into the Phoenix pub, demanded breakfast and chained the prisoners to the bar.<\/p>\n
However, back in St John\u2019s Chapel an angry mob of miners had assembled, armed themselves with a few guns and many sticks, stones and knuckle dusters and set off as fast as possible down the dale road with much shouting of curses, plans and resolve. By the time they reached Stanhope they had quietened, knowing surprise was their best weapon and a small group crept silently up to the pub, then burst in. With a flurry of blows struck, boots going in, punches thrown, blood flowing and a fog of language the constables were overcome and left on the floor either unconscious of moaning and groaning. The cheer of the miners developed into a shout for Tinny Walter and so the local tinsmith was bundled in to the bar where he ceremonially struck down with his hammer and chisel onto the chains and with a ringing clang freed the Siddle brothers. And with further cries of \u201cHoorah!\u201d \u201cHurray\u201d and \u201cHaway the lads!\u201d the mob spilled out, victorious, into the market square.<\/p>\n
By Eunice Ridley, Hilda Reed, Bob Hope, Aida Elliott, Ivy Carter, Les Hutchinson, Wilf Anderson, Magaret Baty, Doris Ayre, Don Robson, Connie Golightly, Henry Egglestone, Lilly Smith and Joe Morgan, with Jeremy Warr<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The constables woke during their night camp out on the wild heights of Bollihope. There was mist everywhere and over everything and the sound of beasts breathing nearby mixed with the wind that drove at them across the moor. An …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/971"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}