My father was a miner in Scotland for around thirty years. Both maternal and paternal grandparents were also miners. My father started in the 'pits' when he was thirteen and was determined that none of his sons would have to do this work. Therefore he valued education very highly and stressed that this was the way my brothers could avoid having to do the kind of work that he did. However after leaving the pits he worked in a factory for a while. He could not understand the attitude of people whose main aim was to 'skive' off work - he had worked in an industry where if you didn't do your job properly someone else could die. He was a shaftsman, maintaining the shaft, and often talked of his 'boy'- his assistant. I remembered being really surprised when I met this 'boy' - a man in his 50's.