My grandfather went into the local tileworks because he really, really didn't want to go down the coal mine. When the tileworks closed down he had a nervous breakdown, although they didn't call it that then - he was in hospital for a week. Then they packed him off home and he went down the mine, as did two of his sons. He seems to have been a bright bloke, as he was given the job of checking the weights* - he was known as Edwards Chwarae Teg, 'Fair Play' Edwards.

He was still a coalminer in 1926, when the miners stayed out all year and ended up being starved back to work on worse terms than those they'd left. My Dad got an education, got out and went to London, and lived to be nearly 90, but his father and both his brothers who went down the mine died relatively young.

So my grandfather - who I never knew - actually was a miner between the wars (unlike Billy Bragg). And it was bloody horrible.

*Family story - I don't know the details.