who comes from coal miners?

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,David Nuttall, Wakefield
Date: 18 Oct 15 - 06:10 AM

Thankyou for that , Guest , ...16th Oct ! It,s a very unselfish love which parents often have for their family as displayed by them doing such hard , dangerous and demanding jobs to provide for them. I often reflect on fishermen ,too ,who endure tremendous hardship and danger to earn their living....such a hard life ! Both mining ( of many different kinds ) and deep sea fishing have been the focus of so many great songs over the years. Someone has said that the best three things to have emerged from the coal mining industry has been the coal , the camaraderie and the songs !! I would recommend a guided tour / visit to the National Coal Mining Museum , Caphouse Colliery, near Wakefield to experience first- hand a visit to the coal face... it is a truly inspirational visit with artefacts and paintings, photographs , memorabilia and changing exhibitions to provide a great insight into mining life.

DAVID

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 01:13 PM

DAVID, your Dad loved you very much.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: hsempl
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 11:00 AM

My Richards ancestors came from Wales in the mid-1800s to Pennsylvania; I don't know if my great-great-great grandfather (John Richards) was following other Richardses there or not, but there certainly were others, so maybe it was a larger family group. Anyway, he came first with his oldest son, then his wife and younger children followed, and after some time mining in Pennsylvania, they moved (I think after the Civil War) to east Tennessee and worked in the mining business in Rockwood. John's son Will was a superintendent, and seems to have been a fair, loved one. I know it was noted that black and white miners were paid equal wages. He had 13 kids, and my mom said all the boys (these would have been her great uncles) worked in the mines; and most of them died young; I don't think any in mining accidents, but of lung ailments. A bunch of the Richardses moved to Pennington Gap, Virginia and worked in the mines there (Bonnie Blue area). I have photos of my great grandfather in the mine with the lamp-hat on, but I think he only did it as a young man; by the time he was married with children, the industry was changing, and he started working in the hosiery mill, and later as a grocery store manager (and still later he moved to east Texas with his family and a close family friend and opened a bowling alley). On my dad's side, the Thompsons worked in the coal and iron business in east Tennessee, at Eagle Furnace and Rockwood. I find several Thompsons listed as "hammermen" in the censuses of 1850 and 1860; I looked up a description of that, and it seems to have been using sledge hammers to hammer molten iron that was being at the same time hammered by a (hydraulic?) hammer. The younger Thompson, my great-great-grandfather, got out of that work as a young man and went into journalism and politics.
My Richards great-grandfather is said to have had a nice singing voice and to have been always singing; but no one seems to remember any particular songs that he sang, sadly. I am guessing it was probably mens' club type stuff. His dad would probably have still spoken welsh some, but I don't think he did; maybe a few words. He died about five years before I was born.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 08:47 AM

I come from a mining family in Castlecomer County Kilkenny in Ireland, mines famous for it's great quality Black Marble as mentioned in the Trad somg Carrickfergus. But why the question?

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,David Nuttall , Wakefield
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 01:43 PM

I wonder if the relatives of the following would consider that they 'COME FROM COAL MINERS ' as all were Bevin Boys and worked in the mines as a result of a random ballot during the last war.....

Jimmy Saville ( Bevin Boy at South Kirkby colliery...see my previous post )

Paul Hamlyn ( Of the publishing company )

Nat Lofthouse ( footballer )

Eric Morecambe ( comedian )


DAVID

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 12:49 PM

do we win a prize if we come from miners?

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,David Nuttall, Wakefield
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 12:26 PM

My Dad , Sam , was a coal miner at South Kirkby Colliery in South Yorkshire in the 1940's, 50's and 60's.

Along with my 2 sisters and brother we can never thank him enough for working all hours in difficult conditions to provide for us all...with three of us ending up as teachers and Headteachers. One must also remember the crucial role of mothers and wives at such times too as they planned and made financial ends meet for the whole family...very much a driving force.

When we were around 7 or 8 my brother and I were taken illegally down the pit by our Dad one Sunday afternoon . He had pre- arranged to have the cage ( which would transport us to the bottom of the shaft ) dropped at a break - neck and frightening speed ! I still recall how the sudden drop felt and how my heart was in my mouth....far worse than the big dipper at Blackpool!!!!! We had a good tour around and experienced first-hand the dust and muck, the standing water, the machinery, props , mice , pit ponies, smells and atmosphere and the cramped hostile conditions. The general idea was to show us the stark reality of it all so we would NEVER contemplate a life in the pit in later years ....not that he would have allowed it !!

His work was hard in spite of the improvements following the introduction of nationalisation and the end of private ownership . He had blue scars all over his body from the coal dust infected cuts etc from falling rock and coal.Through earlier kneeling with a pick and shovel his cartilages on both knees were removed and he walked with a stick following the subsequent removal of his knee cap .In earlier times he had been a collier but in later life he operated a trepanner...the very latest coal-cutting machine .

I have written ( and still sometimes sing ) poems/songs which tell of his time in the pit and of the subsequent sad demise of whole coal mining communities following closures....these effects are still very much in evidence on communities even today and much political bitterness still remains.

However , a friend often remarks that the closure of the dangerous coal mines signified the end of accidents, pain, hardship and death and so the closures,he believes, are very much for the better ...a blessing in disguise .

I have tried to write objectively and without too much sentimentality and may post some of the poems here to give a better insight into those harsh times.

DAVID

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Snuffy
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 10:23 AM

One of my uncles (my mother's brother-in-law) was a miner in the Durham coalfield in the early fifties. I can still see him coming home black all over and sitting in a tin bath in front of the fire with the clothes horse around it as a screen.
He later got a job at Vickers driving an overhead crane, and it was a family joke that he started at the bottom and made it to the very top.

Just about all of my ex-wife's cousins and uncles were Derbyshire miners, as was her father - a Pole who came to Britain via Siberia and the Eighth Army. I have spent many a Sunday lunchtime in Miners Welfare clubs playing crib or dominoes with him and his mates.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 10:23 AM

To continue the drift -- sorry, but it might be of interest: the male Dr Leavis would be talking to a fellow don at a party or reception, & she would come up to them & exclaim to her husband in a loud voice, "Have you forgotten we're not talking to him!" Contentiousness personified, she was. (But Valerie always blessed her supervising, at that, for the results it got her!)

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 10:12 AM

Valerie was also supervised by the brilliant but opinionated Q D [Queenie] Leavis in her last year. In a supervision about Thomas Hardy, when Mrs L was holding forth on the virtues of the "organic community", a great shibboleth of the Leavises when they were influential critics, Valerie remarked that the organic life was not all it was sometimes cracked up to be: "I remember the nuisance to my mother of my miner father having to have water heated for a hip-bath when he came home from a day's shift because we had no running water or indoor sanitation".
"Nonsense, dear," replied Queenie in not-to-be-contradicted tones, "you're much too young!" The Leavises had their following -- even I admired his work in my 1st & 2nd years — but Queenie was a nasty king·sized old bitch as ever there was.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 10:04 AM

My wife's father & grandfather were miners in the Haig Colliery in Whitehaven. The site is now a museum, which would, I'm sure, have surprised them both!

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 10:00 AM

The father of my first wife Valerie {1935-2007} was a Forest of Dean miner. He started at the age of 14, when that was the school-leaving age, as a pit-pony boy, looking after the ponies that hauled the trucks & trolleys, and became a face-hewer eventually. He was alive when I first met Valerie, but died soon after so I never met him. He would sometimes leave the pit and work for a while on commission as an insurance agent; but money from this was intermittent, so he would go back down the pit, much to my mother-in-law-to-be's annoyance. — There was no running water or indoor sanitation in their house until 1950, nor pithead baths or showers in those days, so it meant a hip-bath with water heated by the fire when he came home. Valerie once told one of the younger students when she was a mature student at Newnham, Cambridge, having won a mature state scholarship after we were married because she had missed out on higher education at the usual time [she got a first, so certainly justified it all -- why I still live in Cambridge area BTW], that she remembered her father's hip-baths by the fire from her childhood. "You've been reading too much Lawrence," was the insensitive reply: rather surprisingly, as this younger fellow-student was actually a very nice girl who became a friend.

≈Michael≈

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 08:10 AM

Janie, yes that is a tough row to hoe, but your Grandmother picked-up and moved.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Janie
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 07:11 AM

My maternal grandfather was a coal miner in the southern coalfields of West Virginia. He was killed in a mine accident when my mother was young. He was a shift foreman. There were reports of roof problems and he went down to inspect before his shift went in. The roof of the shaft collapsed on him.

My great grandfather and great uncle worked at the tipple, not down in the mine.

My grandmother pulled the entire extended family out of the coalfields after grandfather died, vowing that none of her boys would go down in the mines.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 02:38 AM

Goodness, no wonder there's so many socialists in the U.K. Just awful, but heartening stories. Props to all...

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 14 Oct 15 - 10:19 PM

When looking at my father's family in the census records, I found that his father, as a boy, worked in a pit - he was tiny, about 4 ft 9 inches, and he got an apprenticeship and trained as a hair dresser when he was older.

He never once mentioned that he'd worked in a coalmine, my father never mentioned it either - but it was definitely him.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Gervase
Date: 14 Oct 15 - 05:21 PM

My great-great grandfather great grandfather and grandfather were miners; the first two were hewers, and did the job from the age of 14 until past 65 but my grandfather looked after the ponies and then, at 16, left the mine to work for a coffin-maker. And then, at 20, he walked to London and became a copper. And he never quite forgave his daughter for marrying a Tory...

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: mayomick
Date: 14 Oct 15 - 09:20 AM

more open drift (threadwise)
The Daily Mail article above on child labour during Britain's industrial revolution quoted without naming......
"A German visitor to Manchester in 1842 remarked that there were so many limbless people it was like 'living in the midst of an army just returned from campaign'"

A German clockwinder to Manchester came , Fredrick Engels was that old German's name

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: mayomick
Date: 14 Oct 15 - 09:12 AM

"a fairly runty little bloke who was scared half out of his wits by the thought of going down the mine, and then had to go down anyway"
describes my dad quite well .When he got down ,he'd be crawling through 3 foot seams having to buy his own explosives - if a shot misfired the miners had to take it out themselves.
At least they had some protection compared to the near slave conditions of the nineteenth century

"Robert North, who worked in a coal mine in Yorkshire, told an inspector: 'I went into the pit at seven years of age. When I drew by the girdle and chain, my skin was broken and the blood ran down … If we said anything, they would beat us.' "

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312764/Britains-child-slaves-New-book-says-misery-helped-forge-Britain.html#ixzz3oTniSe

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 13 Oct 15 - 03:36 PM

I agree, Will - what was done to the mining communities was dreadful and left scars that are still there now.

It's just (thread drift alert)... that Billy Bragg song gets to me. I used to like it, or sort of like it; it was on the list of eight or ten songs I thought I could do when I first started going to folk clubs (so that's how recently that was). Never did do it, though, and after a while it dropped off the list.

These days it makes me cringe. I know what he's doing in the first verse - setting up the honest working man who earns a living by the sweat of his brow and doesn't want to do any harm to anyone, and so on - but it seems a really crude idealisation: "me good worker! me want world peace!". When I think of a "miner ... between the wars" I think of a fairly runty little bloke who was scared half out of his wits by the thought of going down the mine, and then had to go down anyway. There's a kind of dignity there, but it's a dignity that must have really hurt.

I suppose (wrenching it back on-topic) that's what I feel I got from the whole story - the heritage of being really screwed-over.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Ebor Fiddler
Date: 13 Oct 15 - 11:27 AM

The last colliers in our family worked in Garforth pits about 1800, unless you count Colliery Managers? (I thought not!).

Chris B.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Oct 15 - 11:16 AM

Up until my great-grandfather (locomotive driver), every male in my father's line - brothers, cousins, etc., was a coal miner. some were killed in the Pretoria Pit disaster in 1910.

My great-great-great-grandfather was born in 1816 and pulled coal carts as a small child before "graduating" as a full miner at the age of 16. He died at the comparatively old age age of 68 in 1884. Tough people.

It was a bloody awful job - and yet men mourned when pits closed and missed the camaraderie of the work and the community.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: mayomick
Date: 13 Oct 15 - 11:16 AM

re. this part of my previous comment ."This reminded me of the reference to Orpheus in Ewan MacColls song "My Old Man" " . That should have been Macall's reference to Cyclops

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: mayomick
Date: 13 Oct 15 - 11:13 AM

Extreme thread drift alert for the following comment

Nigel Parson wrote in 2002 about male voice choirs, using the title "Orpheus" to denote their origins underground. e.g."The Morriston Orpheus Choir". This reminded me of the reference to Orpheus in Ewan MacColls song "My Old Man" . MacColl's dad was a one-eye-closed moulder thus, "one of Cyclops' smoky band" . Bricklayers in Ireland also call themselves " Cyclops" -after the way they line up their work keeping one eye closed . Do any other trades have such ironic references to the classics?

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: mayomick
Date: 13 Oct 15 - 10:53 AM

My father was a coal miner in Yorkshire before the war. His father and uncles and grandfather had been miners. He ran away when they tried to conscript him to train up the Bevan Boys during WW2 but put the skills he learned in the pits to use working as a leading miner- later as a pit boss - building tunnels in London (although he always said that coal miners wouldn't regard such work as real mining) .
My mother's family worked in the pits as well . She had an uncle died in an explosion in Wales.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Barnacle (at work)
Date: 13 Oct 15 - 08:49 AM

My father was colliery joiner and then shaftsmen at Blackhall Colliery in the South Durham Coalfields. His father was a miner too as was one of my brothers and my brother in law was a colliery electrician.

As colliery joiner, my father made coffins for some of the 83 miners lost when, on 29 May (dad's birthday) 1951, there was an explosion at Easington Collier, two pits away.

He was proud of the work and of the friends he made, disagreed with striking for pay, but supportive of striking for safer conditions. I do remember him collecting sea coal to keep us warm through one of the strikes.

Is that close enough?

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,MikeL2
Date: 13 Oct 15 - 06:23 AM

Hi

My grandfather on my mother's side worked in the pit at Elsecar ( near Barnsley ) in Yorkshire.

He played cornet in the Colliery brass band. My father followed him down the pit for a couple of years but came out and moved over to Cheshire where he worked as an engineer.

Both of them taught me about music and I am now grateful for what they did; though at the time I didn't always enjoy the long hours of practice.

Regards

Mikel2

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 13 Oct 15 - 03:33 AM

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.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 12 Oct 15 - 02:31 PM

Three of my uncles were miners & my gran's brother was killed in the mine. Salt of the earth.
"It's dark as a dungeon ...."

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,ada the cadre
Date: 12 Oct 15 - 12:36 PM

Gresford Disaster was collected by Ewan MacColl from a young miner called Ford in the Sheffield area.(AL Lloyd Come All Ye Bold Miners) Does anybody know who wrote it?
Whoever it was seems to have followed the Enquiry pretty closely. It found the following breaches of the Coal Mines Act: failure to keep books, to maintain adequate ventilation, to supply separate means of egress where required, to cut off electric current when gas levels of more than 1.25% of gas was present. The management also failed to comply with requirements regarding telephone apparatus, coal dust, withdrawal of workmen and limitation of hours.
Most of these breaches were not disputed. The under-manager explaining why he had broken the regulations about shot firing said frankly "If all these men on the level of the main coal seam had to be withdrawn for every shot on that road, which I had considered quite safe personally, then the colliery would have had to close. The Act could never be complied with" 265 men (not 242 +3 as it says in the song) died. The law was broken in many ways. Nobody went to prison or was heavily fined. Britain's Coal, Margot Heinemann 1944. Something to ponder next time someone tells you that Health & Safety have gone mad.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jan 13 - 05:16 PM

I sort of know what you Sir Coughsalot. My grandfather was a clog dancing Lancashire miner, full of folksong and folk wisdom - and of course as a kid, it bored me shitless. And his tales of hardship (delivered with stolid northern resentment)seemed designed to make me feel guilty about the few nice things that I had as kid in the 1950's. I rejected it all. Still do - to a large extent.

But in way - that works against me. I am rootless. One of the cleverest things I heard Christy Moore said was that it is imperative as an artist to take into account your roots - even if it is only to understand what you are rejecting and why you are rejecting it.

My grandparents (even the Lancashire coal miner!) were Irish. It is only when I started to understand that my parents were the children of immigrants that I understood THEIR attitudes and actions and thoughts and decisions.

where we come from is where we come from - no getting away from it.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,SirCoughsalot
Date: 05 Jan 13 - 04:00 PM

Being a lifelong resident of West Virginia, there are bound to be some in there. Both my grandfathers were coal miners, but I don't think of myself as "coming from coal miners."

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Janie
Date: 05 Jan 13 - 03:24 PM

My maternal family lived in southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia for multiple generations. Neither my grandmother nor my mother had fond memories of the coal camps, and after my grandfather died my grandmother (a colorful and remarkably strong woman) pulled the entire family, including her own parents and siblings, out of the coalfields just as soon as she could.

Granny BB (as we called her) refused to go see the movie "Matewan" with us. "Why would I want to be reminded?" She wasn't thinking so much about the union wars, but about life in the coalfields.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jan 13 - 02:35 PM

Its cockney rhyming slang....

As in wotcha mate! I'm going dahn the old frog and toad to be a coal miner

which freely translated means

I am currently studying graphic design at art college.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Jan 13 - 02:14 PM

My grandfather in the late 1800s.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Gurney
Date: 05 Jan 13 - 02:07 PM

No career miners, but both dad and I were miners for a time. Separate times, English Midlands coalfields.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Janie
Date: 05 Jan 13 - 12:04 PM

My maternal family worked in and around the mines in McDowell Co., West Virginia. My grandfather died in a coal shaft when the roof of the seam collapsed in 1938 when Mom was 9. My great grandfather worked at the tipple and my great grandmother ran a boarding house in an Island Creek coal camp.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,BOAB
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 09:12 PM

Iwas a miner for a lot o´years.In engineering, but I was down there with the lads-so I was a miner, and proud of it.Best bunch of mates I ever had. Was involved in the rescue at the Knockshinoch disaster in 1950. A story there, but too long for this forum.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Jim I
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 02:21 PM

My grandfather left school and became a grocer's delivery boy. He joined the army at 17 and served in France for 2 years being invalided out after a gas attack. He went down the mines and did 50 years retiring at 70 in 1969. He then got a job as a park attendant and was still working when he died aged 74.

His father was also a miner for over 50 years and I have his certificate celebrating 50 years as a member of the NUM.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 07:22 AM

Correct, Gareth. I concur, entirely. Burl

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Dave Williams
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 11:14 PM

Maire-aine,

Yes, Nanty Glo (Welsh, Nant y Glo) translates to Coalbrook in English.

BJ,

Right. The title (for those who may be interested) of one of Cordell's sequels you mentioned is "The Fire People". This one gives the history of the Merthyr Rising and the story of Dic Penderyn.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Gareth
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 07:13 PM

Yes, but don't thee forget, the women and children served thier time underground as well, and on top, sorting cleaning, picking etc.

The price of coal was nasty, and it still continues.

I remember a Memorial at Aberfan - There was a school there once.

Gareth

And I see an old collier whose body stands broken,
Claimed by the dust, much finer than sand,
And I'll ak him the question that you cannot answer,
I'll ask him the question, he'll understand,
Collier Laddy, Collier Bay,

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 06:12 PM

Earlier in this thread I said I liked it because it gave me chance to write about my coal miner uncle. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading about other folks uncles, fathers, great stories all. No argument, miners are a special breed of men, their working conditions made them so. The women who loved thier miner husbands, sweethearts, children, were remarkable too. It's no wonder that the songs that come out of tghe miner's life experience are such good ones. Thanks to all contributors to this thread. Burl.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 08:11 PM

For anyone who hasn't read them, Richard Llewellyn's 'How Green Was My Valley' and Alexander Cordell's 'Rape Of The Fair Country' (plus their respective sequels) are brilliant evocations of typical Welsh mining and iron communities in the 19th Century. Apart from the rich descriptions of family life, there's a genuine understanding of the hardships and unfairness of Industrial Revolution, and of the poltical upheavals it engendered. (Did you know that the Methyr Uprising is meant to have seen the first raising of a red flag as a symbol of revoltion ?)

BJ

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: maire-aine
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:52 AM

My father's family came from western Pennsylvania, a town called Nanty Glo, where my Grandfather (d. in 1918) worked for the railroad. Only one of my Dad's brothers (there were 5 of them) worked in the mine, mostly because my Grandmother put a stop to it. The oldest brother was the only one to serve in the armed forces during WWI, and he came to Detroit as soon as he got out of the service. One or two at a time, Grandmother sent the rest of the boys to join their older brother in the big city. Finally, she and the 3 sisters joined them. According to family history, she was determined that her boys weren't going to go down into the mines. I've always felt there was a song in there somewhere. They all (boys and girls both) ended up working for the JL Hudson company, and made did pretty well, when all was said and done.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,Dave Williams
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 12:31 AM

Gareth,

Could be, although I don't live in Rhymney, I live in Ohio. The two great great uncles I mentioned were brothers of my great grandmother Alice Williams (nee Gower). She and my great grandfather were married in Tredegar in 1872.

Alice herself labored in the iron foundries as a teenager, bore 11 children, outlived 3 of them, and died at 77. I know that I must have relatives living in Wales, but I've not located any yet.

Great grandfather Lewis was a puddler, and most of my direct ancestors on my father's side were in the iron/steel mills. Hellish as they could be, they were miles ahead of working down the pits, which IMO has to be the worst exploitation and worst job ever.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Gareth
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 06:24 PM

Dave Williams of Rhymney - Are we related ????

Gareth of Ystrad Mynach - 8 miles down the Valley

Gareth

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: dorareever
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 04:28 PM

I don't think I have ever had miners in my family.My mother's father worked in a cotton mill and then in a sweets factory,his wife worked in a factory too and was a taylor.My father's father did a bit of carpenter job and then became a barkeep,his wife was an housewife that helped him at the bar such as she had helped her own mother who was a fishmonger. That's my grandparents.Great-grandparents: 1)Mom's side: great-grandfather 1:well-off farmer,then factory working for him too. great-grandmother:mondina which is a woman who worked in the rice fields,then housewife. great-grandfather 2: train conductor,then factory (I see a pattern ther *LOL*!) great-grandmother 2: taylor 2)Dad's side: great-grandfather 1:nightwatch great-grandmother 1: fishmonger great-grandfather 2:carpenter great-grandmother 2: housewife

Before that I guess they were mostly farmers,maybe we have had miners too but that WAS long ago! Sorry if I bore you,but I like talking about my family.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: Metchosin
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 01:39 PM

Dumb isn't it Nicole? That kind of behavior, when it really does occur, has never been just the prerogative of the very poor and the isolated.

Some might like to find comfort in the belief that ones higher socio-economic level, somehow makes one immune from such stuff, particularly, if one perceives themselves of low social status to begin with and feels the need of a scapegoat. IMO, the higher stake in keeping up appearances, just gives one a vested interest in burying family secrets and misdeeds more deeply.

Subject: RE: who comes from coal miners?
From: GUEST,guitarfixer
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 12:08 PM

I'm the first male in my family for generations that Never worked in a coal mine. My dad worked there only before college and his service in Korea. Both grandfathers worked in the mines of So. Illinois in their teens. They had to farm and run sideline businesses as well to make ends meet. In my late teens I wanted to work in the mines because the money was so good. My Grandpa told me, "We didn't work so hard so that our Grandson would have to work in the mines too." He was injured in his early 60s when he went back to work to build up his miner's pension. The compressed air used to blast the face wne toff unexpectedly and pelted his body with coal and dust. In 1984 we I recorded with pride a song of the coal miners' plight: Coal Town Road

We get up in the black Down the coal town road And we hike along the track Where the coal trains load And we make the ponies pull till they nearly break their backs And they'll never see again Down the coal town road

We hear the whistle blow Down the coal town road And we take our tools and all Down the coal town road In the cages we will drop till there's no where else to fall And we leave this world behind us Down the coal town road

We never see the sun Down the coal town road At a penny for a ton Where the coal trains load When our shift comes up on top We're so thankful to be done We head home to sleep and dream about The coal town road

There's miner's little sons Down the coal town road Playing with their carbide guns Where the coal trains load But they better make the best of their childhool while it runs There's a pick and shovel waiting Down the coal town road

If there's a God for us Down the coal town road All the miners he can bless Where the coal trains load For we're sweating in the hole sucking down the devil's dust Just to keep the fires blazing Down the coal town road