mauvepink, of course you weren't being sexist. It's a little known fact (I think) that men, women and children in the early 19th century worked virtually naked down the pits - which, as you might imagine - created a less than salubrious environment...

If you go to the area where the Lancashire coalfields worked in by my ancestors used to be - around Blackrod, Haigh, Arley, etc., all close to the Liverpool/Lancaster canal - you'll see little sign of the pits, slag heaps, railway lines, ditches and general industrial landscape. All green fields now. Oddly enough, the row of miner's cottages at Red Rock - where my g-g-g-grandfather lived in the 1840s and 1850s - is still there, right by the canal bank. And very sweet it all looks these days!

Last year I had the opportunity to photograph the rate books for the Haigh district - including the data for the cottages where my family lived. They were always a couple of shillings in arrears. What was an eye-opener was how the whole district - cottages, farms, mills, fields - was all owned by the Earl of Balcarres. 'Twas ever thus.