Then there were the added horrors of child labor. Two of my great great uncles were door boys in Rhymney in the 1850s at the ages of 11 and 9. Some were as young as 6 or 7.

Doorboys were used in the mine to control the ventilation by opening and closing doors to allow the trams through when they heard them coming, but otherwise keeping them closed to force air to go throughout the whole mine. They may only have had a candle to last the day and often fell asleep at their posts. Many were injured or crushed to death by the wagons.

And there were girls used to pull trams through narrow tunnels. They wore a belt with a line passing between their legs and attached to the tram, pulling it by crawling on their hands and knees.

And above ground, the breaker boys mentioned earlier, who straddled a chute sorting stone and slate from the coal as it hurtled past.

Children spent 10 to 14 hours a day on the job, 6 days a week with virtually no chance of emancipation. Not much different than slavery. How did they handle the despair?