Having earned the nickname of Old King Coal, Keith Mandale has been feeling like a very merry old soul indeed this month as the firm started by his father is now 100 years old.
In 1921, John Mandale, of Greystoke, was offered the chance to take over a coal business at Penruddock station as the previous merchant William Thompson wished to retire.
He had returned home two years earlier as one of less than 30 survivors from the Lonsdale battalion who fought at the Battle of the Somme in World War One.
At that time, all coal sold was shovelled into carts and weighed over the station yard weighing machine.
It was common practice for people who lived in cottages to ask a local farmer, or a person who had a horse and cart, to come to the depot on Saturday mornings for a load to see them over the weekend.
Between 1930 and 1935, the era for horse and carts faded out with the introduction of the motor lorry deliveries.
However, this made his work very much harder due to the fact that all the fuel had to be bagged into 100 weights and be carried off at the customer’s property.
Keith, having left school in 1951, went, shovel in hand, to help his father with the coal business which had by then been in existence for 30 years.
“Quite a lot of the farmers came with their tractors and trailers for a ton of loose coal,” recalled Keith, now aged 85.
When he was old enough to drive, he used his uncle Bernard’s Bedford lorry to deliver bags of coal to surrounding villages.
At the age of 18, Keith was called up to do his national service and spent two years in the Army stationed in Hong Kong before returning to Greystoke and decided it was time for the the business to get mechanised.
“I bought a Commer Two Stroke lorry for £285, had a hopper made, and ordered a new bespoke pelican loader to empty the railway wagons,” said Keith.
After being told the Penrith to Keswick railway line was going to close, the only option was to move to the Penrith goods yard where the mechanical grab came in handy for Keith to tranship fuel for merchants from Keswick, Lazonby, Glenridding and the Penrith Co-op’s coal department. In total, there were nine
coal merchants trading in the area at the time.
In 1980, Keith took the Penrith Co-op business over. When British Rail realised they had a prime site for developing Keith was asked to relocate again to Blencowe Station and purchased it freehold in June, 1984.
At this new site, all the bagging of fuel was moved inside out of all the bad weather in winter.
The lorries were also parked in the garage out of the rain and snow. Following the death of Keith’s wife, Dorothy, in November, 1993, his eldest son Andrew, now aged 58, came into the business.
Later, another son, Richard, who is 56, joined and now there is also a fourth generation involved in the form of Richard’s 21-year-old daughter, Annie.
During the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, the Mandales were asked by the Government to stock and reload coal for all the pyres in the surrounding area.
It came up from Liverpool in huge HGVs, but these massive vehicles couldn’t get onto the farms, so they had to tip it at the yard at Blencowe. In total, a total of 10,800 tons were handled.
“I never thought I would see the day that no British coal would be available, with the alternative being Columbian or Russian,” said Keith.
Over the years, he will have had coal from over 20 different Yorkshire collieries, but there was not one UK pit open now. Looking to the future, he said there had been a spanner thrown into the works with the announcement that customers are going to be stopped from burning coal in two years’ time, but the business has already branched out into other areas.
“We are selling smokeless fuel to meet the demand and have diversified into supplying different colours of decorative gravel and building sand, all connected to the building trade,” said Keith.
The firm has two small tippers and can deliver it in bulk which means people don’t have to dig into dumpy bags and scoop it out themselves.
They can take two tonnes and just tip it on their drive and it’s much easier and they can do it in their own time.
Keith, who stepped back from being hands-on in the business nine years ago, added: “As one door closes another one opens and we have managed to hang in there as best we could.
“It’s so nice to feel our loyal customers have stayed with Old King Coal for 100 years. Thank you all.”
