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Sid Chaplin was born in Shildon, County Durham, in 1916 when the great northern coalfields were at their height, and died in 1986 when they were on their last legs. 

He would go on to become one of the North East’s most acclaimed authors with a writing career spanning 45 years, seven critically acclaimed novels, four short story collections, two books of essays, television screenplays and prolific journalism, but that apprenticeship in the pit remained a lifelong influence as his works are mostly set in the North East England during the 1940s and 1950s.

Early Life

Sidney Chaplin, or Sid as he was known, was born on the 20th September, 1916 to Isaiah (Ike) and Elsie Chaplin (nee Charlton). They lived at 23 Bolckow Street, Shildon, the home of his maternal grandparents, with his paternal grandparents living across the street on Vaughan Street. Whilst a child, his family moved from Shildon to Bincester Blocks, then to Byers Green, then to Newfield, then to Eldon Lane before settling in Ferryhill in 1932, when Sid was aged 15. He was the eldest of six children and he loved reading. There were very few books in the home but he would read any book he could get his hands on. He always had a yearning to tell stories and he used to tell stories to his sisters and brothers as they lay in bed in Ferryhill. 

Working Life

After leaving school at the age of 14, he began his working life in a local bakery, but the unpleasant dust from the flour caused him to suffer dermatitis. So he began an apprenticeship as a colliery blacksmith at the Dean and Chapter Colliery in Ferryhill. He continued in this work while obtaining an education from the Worker's Educational Association of the University of Durham (1932-46). In 1939, he won a scholarship to Fircroft College for Working Men, Birmingham. On the 1939 census, Sidney Chaplin is recorded as a colliery belt fitter and living with his mother and father at 21 Westcott Terrace, Ferryhill. 

Later, he was introduced to the Spennymoor Settlement, which was like a local haven for the people who loved the arts. Norman Cornish, a pitmen turned painter, was there at the same time. They became firm friends.

He began to write in 1940, shortly after the outbreak of war had stinted his college ambitions (Fircroft College was closed down) and sent him back to the pits at the Dean and Chapter Colliery. But by 1941 he was already getting work published, initially in Penguin New Writing. Among his first published works, the poem A Widow Wept had been written during an underground shift at the colliery. 

He married Irene Rutherford on New Years Day, 1941. She was a local girl from Ferryhill Station. That same year they moved into 9 Gladstone Terrace, Ferryhill Station. It was at this house where his three children were born - Gillian, Christopher (an engineer) and Michael (actor, writer and editor of his father's work.) He was a branch secretary of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (1943–45). In 1948 he accepted a post as journalist for the National Coal Board magazine, Coal. For the first few years, he commuted to London, and travelled around on assignments to different parts of the country, but eventually the family moved to outer London. They moved from a tiny pit house (2 up, 2 down, with an outside toilet and a tin bath that was brought in once a week) to a brand new Council house in Harold Hill, Essex, near Romford. This house was palatial, by comparison, with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, central heating and a stream at the bottom of the garden. In 1957 he was offered a new post as Public Relations Officer for the National Coal Board, in Newcastle and the family moved to Jesmond, near Newcastle.

He wasn't happy or very creative during this period, so eventually he returned to Tyneside where he wrote the novels The Watchers and the watched (1962, set in the West end of Newcastle) and The Day of the Sardine (1961, set in the East end of Newcastle). 

This plaque has been placed on the house at 9 Gladstone Terrace, Ferryhill, where he lived with his young family until 1953. He had an extensive reference library in the front room and book shelves went right around the room. It has been installed to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth.

His Body of Work

An influence on writers like Alan Sillitoe and Stan Barstow, his novels offer a realistic evocation of life among Tyneside mining families, and reflect a vanishing British working-class culture. The Leaping Lad (1946; rev. ed., 1970), a collection of short stories about the Durham mining community, established Chaplin as a talented regional writer. He entered it in a competition in 1946 and won "The Atlantic Award for Literature" which had a prize of £300 from the Rockefeller Trust. This allowed him to concentrate on writing for a short period of time before returning to the pit. Among his best novels are The Day of the Sardine (1961), in which the protagonist, the moody Arthur Haggerston, anticipates a typical John Braine hero but with more cynicism about his own aspirations to an affluent way of life; and The Watchers and the Watched (1962). His other novels include My Fate Cries Out (1949), The Thin Seam (1950), The Big Room (1960), Sam in the Morning (1965), and The Mines of Alabaster (1971). Among his collections of short stories are The Leaping Lad (1946), On Christmas Day in the Morning (1979), The Bachelor Uncle (1980) and In Blackberry Time (1987). 

His stories inspired the iconic stage musical Close the Coal-house Door and he also wrote for television, including the BBC series When the Boat Comes In and the series Funny Man for Thames Television and The Paper Lads for Tyne Tees Television. Sid Chaplin was a regular and accomplished broadcaster and was a contributor to local and national newspapers and other publications throughout his life.

Later Life

He retired from the National Coal Board in 1971, at the age of 58 years. In 1973, Sid suffered a major heart attack which required open heart surgery, which was a very new procedure at that time. Four years later, in 1977, he was awarded an OBE, for services to the arts in the North East, where he had helped form Northern Arts in 1961.

Sid Chaplin died of a heart attack on the 11th January, 1986, aged 69, while participating in a literary weekend at Grasmere, Cumbria. His wife Rene died on the 12th October 2002, aged 91. A volume of short stories, Hame: My Durham, was published posthumously in 2016, edited by his son Michael Chaplin (appointed as Executor of his literary works).

There is a writer's competition held in his name.

SOURCE: This biography has been compiled by the Teacher Librarian, from various shorter extracts of biographical information. Some of the information came from the news article cited below.

PARTIAL SOURCE: Warburton, D. (2013), Sid Chaplin's residence in Newcastle up for sale, Chronicle Live, https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/local-news/sid-chaplins-residence-newcastle-up-1369113