- This topic has 26 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 10 months ago by
.
-
Germany is actually still mining Lignite from open cast works. This is of course part of the two-faced EU Directives and warnings for the UK about pollution here.
My dad was born in Burslem, mother town of the Potteries and where the industry began, with coal mined from local North Staffordshire pits, China Clay and iron all initially from other local sources. The town was in a deep valley and the surrounding Potteries towns in the Stoke on Trent conurbation, all have to descend a steep hill to enter the town. The photo shows what it was like to live and work there for my granddad and the 8 out of his 13 surviving children, who grew up there. My dad had Ricketts (lack of sunshine & Vitamin D) and all 3 of his sons inherited it in some form. Big brother wore leg irons to around 8 years of age, as did I. Middle brother’s legs were bowed. Pic is of Burslem in 1920’s, family lived somewhere in there on St. John Street.
In 1926 my parents married, in the middle of the General Strike. Dad walked with his brother, my uncle Jack, to a new pit opened by Lord Newstead, in the village of Blidworth* Notts, which is where I grew up. The village pit was high on one of the 3 hills, but we lived at the bottom of the valley. Growing up in the 40’s to the 70’s, in an NCB estate, meant coal fires in at least 2 rooms and coal fired cooking. Down in the valley, it was not too bad, as in the early decades the miners’ coal allowance came from the local pit and Blidworth pit had hard coal from a very deep seam. Then the NCB had a brainwave and decided to have a “Coal Pool” system, which meant transporting each pit’s share of the allowance to a central depot, then trucking it out to each village. The logistics and economics of this change, tell you all you need to know about the administration of the NCB.
Entering the Dale where we lived, from any one of 3 hills and 3 roads on a winters’ day, showed a haze of smoke over the village. But the worst days were the wash days: miners’ wives became adept at watching for wind direction on the morning of Wash day! If the wind blew from the south, SE or SW, the pit boiler chimneys, and all the house chimneys behind our house, would send smuts and smoke all over the washing. I learned some choice language at an early age from my mother…
Probably because of his early life, my dad would walk miles in the country around the village, often taking me with him. It’s from dad that I got my love of the countryside and we both learned about local fauna and flora, by observing, then going to the library to look up what we saw. It’s where I learned to “talk” with birds such as Thrushes and Blackbirds, by whistling back to them. Since I got my new hearing aids and can hear the little feathered buggas again, here in my Lincolnshire village, I have taken this up again. Some neighbours are convinced that I am losing it, others actually come out to listen. I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks, I just love doing it.
*Ironically, in the 60’s and 70’s, Blidworth was called ‘Smoky Town’ by truckers who drove through it. Incidentally, the word “Pothole” comes from the holes dug in the horrible roads of 18th century North Staffs, to obtain China Clay. Josiah Wedgewood lost so much of his produce to broken cartwheels, that he helped finance the Etruria Canal, a link to the Trent & Mersey. He built a Canal Port at Etruria, to take his pots to Liverpool and out to the world.
Another history lesson, guys!
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.