Many of my forebears left school (if they even attended school) on Friday, aged 14, or 13, or 12, and started colliery work sharp and early the following Monday morning.
And I came to know the “pit” at a very early age – pre-school – when I went with my father to collect his wages on Fridays when he was working the night shift (the wage office was closed then, of course).
Money meant nothing to me then. I had come to see the ponies so, once the wage was collected, I pulled my father in a “bee-line” straight over to the stables, where I knew all the ponies by name – the calm ones and the feisty and scary ones.
I was aware of the workings of the pit, …. the still dirt-covered miners, heading to the pit-head baths for a shower, joking with their mates, planning a trip to the pub to slake their dusty thirst, arguing about anything and nothing, or agreeing when they would come round to help their mate with some outstanding job – many hands made light work in the pit, and in the home.
The mine was much more than a place of work – it was mates, camaraderie and comradeship.
And outside the day job there were a plethora of activities to engage in, singly, or as a group, all the way from keeping pigeons or painting as an amateur artist, to the communal and co-operative ventures of brass-banding, choirs and, of course, many sports.
I also got to see some of the tough jobs carried out at the surface – the boiler house with its bank of raging furnaces, or the fitters shop where the exceptionally skilled guys could turn their hand to anything – because much of the work they did was bespoke.
Then it was off down the pit lane and on to an equally exciting visit to my grandparents for dinner (that’s the midday meal up north – we definitely aren’t posh).
Now all the collieries, and the employment with it, are gone. Vivid memories have stayed with the miners and mining families – and some remnants of the mines remain here and there.
There are even national mining museums in England (Caphouse), Wales (Big Pit) and Scotland (Lady Victoria) where visitors can drop down in the fast-moving cage to experience the underground workings, machinery and get some idea of the severe conditions, in which miners could be maimed or killed.
In the north Staffordshire coalfield, which I knew, there is an adit mine (called a “footrail” in these parts), at Apedale, still open to visitors as a tourist attraction, ….
And what was the first mine in Britain to produce a million tons of saleable coal in one year – Chatterley Whitfield. A Scheduled Ancient Monument with several important and, because of their scale, unique, listed buildings …. all falling into disrepair.
Fortunately, there is the Chatterley Whitfield Friends charity, an enthusiastic group of former miners, mining families and the local community, who man (and woman) a heritage centre, dedicating their time and effort to preserve the heritage of the pit … working with the public to retain the memories of the very tough, skilled lives of miners; their families and their communities.
I am always amazed by the knowledge, appreciation, respect and passion of the miners when they describe their former jobs and the complex equipment they worked with and had to master.
It is information very worthy of being preserved.