Further to the debate on Mine Safety,
Perhaps people may want to visit Living Easton's web site at
www.csm.uwe.ac.uk/~rstephen/Living.Easton.html where under 'Local History'
we have listed the names & details of those miners who died in Easton's
Pits, Bristol, UK.
We also have copies in our Community History Archive of "Killed in a Coal
Pit" and "Suppliment to Killed in a Coal Pit" by DP Lindegaard, covering all
those recorded as having died in the mines of Kingswood, near Bristol, UK.
Harrowing Reading. I could send details of how to obtain copies of the above
if reders are outside of Bristol.
Jim Mcneill
Chair
'Living Easton'
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>From: "John Hinde" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Miners' health
>Date: Thu, May 11, 2000, 4:09 pm
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Evan Price <[log in to unmask]>
>To: mining <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 10:36 PM
>Subject: Miners' health
>
>
>> I have found the last three messages fascinating and Bernard's
>> epistle to be very thought provoking. Although I am making the very
>> same points (in a slightly different way) in my own writing, Bernard, I
>> must disagree with your claim that the miner's statement was wrong. My
>> father and another Welsh miner friend came from Anglesey, where their
>> families were tenant farmers. They both hated mines and had the scars
>> to support their points of view. My father loved farming, although he
>> had seen a young farm hand he was training fall beneath the blades of a
>> disc harrow drawn by a sixteen horse team on the Canadian prairies (he
>> had also an accident working on the railway in Wales). My father was
>> quite happy to leave the mines, and defended miners' rights to higher
>> wages when speaking with "farmers" on the west coast.
>> I, on the other hand, loved (and still love) mines. Despite the
>> fact that, when I was very young, my father had taken me to visit
>> miners in the hospital who were dying of silicosis. Despite the fact
>> that my father and many friends and neighbours had been injured in mine
>> accidents. Despite the fact that many close friends and neighbours were
>> killed in and around the mine (the Sullivan Mine averaged 2.5 deaths per
>> year). Despite the fact that in two and half years, I had a number of
>> close calls myself (being saved only by a very fast reaction time).
>> Despite the fact that my brother, during the depression of the
>> "thirties" quit his job in the Trail smelter, because the lead was
>> effecting his health. I don't know of any other industry that has the
>> same amount of death and disease. I am, of course, speaking of mining
>> and its offshoot industries generally (be it coal, mercury, lead, or
>> "hard rock" gold in quartz).
>> Part of the reason that I quit mining was that I was beginning
>> to enjoy too much the adrenaline lift that came from facing danger. I
>> also knew that my partner and cross-shift were too willing to accept
>> more dangerous conditions for higher contract pay (they used their
>> contract pay for booze money).
>> Miners wages have generally been higher than other industries.
>> But that's only because they deserve the higher wages. I get quite
>> incensed when some historians portray miners as being ignorant and
>> extremely poor, but I find your statement "Miners the world over - and I
>> mean the ones who actually do the digging - have been known for a higher
>> intelligence than their counter parts in other occupations - they have
>> to be" to be contradicting what appears to be the point of your letter.
>> Yet, I am in sympathy with much that you say. When I was a
>> teenager, my father had the opportunity to develope a dairy farm with
>> the backing of a family of successful breeders, who wanted another herd
>> for their breeding program; but I hated farming!! Having been brought
>> up among miners, I had a completely different point of view than my
>> father.
>> Having worked hard as a teenager and as a young man, I learned
>> very early that any workman "is worthy of his hire". When returning to
>> university, and meeting young communists who pleaded the case of the
>> poor working man, however, they irritated me. They didn't know what they
>> were talking about, and I told them to get out and do a good day's work
>> before orating from a soap box.
>> While I won't be presenting a black view of the industry, I can
>> sympathize with those miners who hated the mines and bemoaned their
>> lot. They were telling the truth as they saw it.
>>
>>
>> Useful for miners' wages and safety is Price Fishback's Soft Coal, Hard
>Choices. If I recall, he suggests that while hourly rates were generally
>higher in the coal industry (especially for practical miners), dead time,
>irregular work (they worked fewers days per year than factory workers) and
>other factors made tended to mean that they were not as well paid as
>thought. Recall too that most practical miners were paid piece rates.
>A fascinating and important study is the commission of inquiry into the
>recent Westray mining disaster in Nova Scotia. It offers an array of
>information on safety and other important matters and posits an important
>connection between wages and safety, in particular the bonus system, which
>like payment by piece rates, encouraged risk taking.
>John Hinde.
>
>
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