The following title is still in print and available from yours truly price
is £14.95 +p&p see my website section under Wales
Gresford - The Anatomy of a Disaster, Stanley Williamson
An account of the worst disaster of the North Wales Coalfield and one of the
worst in British mining history. The disaster occurred in 1934. 256 men
lost their lives, 200 women were widowed and 800 children were left
fatherless. The subsequent inquiry led to the establishment of the 1935
Royal Commission on the safety in coal mines. The author uses his own
interviews with bereaved people and those involved in the rescue as well as
drawing on personal accounts of the Inquiry. (PB 243pp)
Cheers
Mike Moore
www.moorebooks.co.uk
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----- Original Message -----
From: JOHN BERRY <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 3:54 AM
Subject: Re: mining-history Digest - 26 Jul 2002 to 27 Jul 2002 (#2002-46)
> Talking about pit disasters, is there a good source on the Gresford
Disaster in
> North Wales? My earliest memory is of hearing adults talking about it:
it had
> occurred shortly before I was born.
>
> Also thankyou to Gareth for pointing out that a miner was then dying every
six
> hours, I'd been looking for confirmation of that for a while. Where can
one find
> out more of the details behind that statistic (numbers per year over a
long
> period, breakdown by type of colliery, region, cause, etc.)? And, just
in case
> they're all collected in the same place, I'm also interested in the
> death/accident for the herring and cod fishing industries.
>
> Incidentally, the worst coalmine disaster that I know of was the Wankie
> (Zimbabwe) explosion in 1971 or 1972. Killed several acquaintances, led
to the
> deaths of more. It was a dust explosion and killed over 400 men, blew
the head
> frame 3/4 mile (so I'm told - I was 400 miles away!). The difference
was
> that, in general, the accident rate at Wankie was low: this was a freak
accident
> in a sense. It was also very democratic: it killed almost the entire
> management team, who were underground on an inspection visit at the time.
It's
> not really British Mining except for the fact that about half the
supervisory
> people killed would have been British.
>
> What amazes me in hindsight is that we all took these things so
fatalistically:
> attitudes have changed so radically throughout industry within my lifetime
that
> it's hard to understand the people we were.
>
> John
>
> John Berry Assocs - Remote Sensing Services
> 5013 Westview Drive, AUSTIN, TX 78731
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