Lancashire Mining Disasters 1835 -1910,
Jack Nadin, soft cover, 170pp
Lancashire Mining Disasters chronicles the effects, death and grief of the local mining communities in Lancashire, through colliery accidents and explosions from the early 1830's through to 1910. It also recalls the great bravery of other miners, often from other pits in the rescue attempts, who with no thought of their own safety went below ground to try and their fellow comrades. In doing so, they knew full well that they were risking their own lives, probably facing death. Such was the comradeship in coal mining communities. In no other industry would men grapple at rock and roof falls with bare hands, wade through flooded smoking underground galleries, or face further explosions and deadly suffocating gases in order to try and save their fellow colleagues. And while all this was ongoing, the pit banks filled with the old men, the grieving womenfolk and children, waiting for news of a loved one - a brother, a son, a husband from deep below in a silent hell. As each cage was raised to the pit bank, the crowd lunged forward hoping, perhaps beyond hope, that their loved one was safe. Little wonder there were no carols sung at Christmastide 1910, at Westhoughton and Atherton in South Lancashire for here, a few days before Christmas an explosion followed by a searing hot fiery blast tore through the workings of the Hulton Colliery Company's Pretoria Pit - and in doing so in just a few seconds took away the lives of over three hundred man and boys. This still holds the unwelcome record of the greatest single colliery explosion in English coalming history. It was coal the fulled the steam engines at mills, factories and foundries which was to make Britain the greatest industrial nation in the world - but what a terrible price the miners paid in putting the 'Great' in Britain. This was the 'True Price of Coal' (Publishers review)
£12.99 + P&P
Pits - A Mining Pictorial History,
John Threlkeld ,Hardback
Size 296 x 210
Pits 1 and 2 have been out of print for a number of years, but due to continued demand, we are now producing a compendium of both volumes which tells the complete story of the growth and development of mining in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Included are chapters covering the evolution, boom and war, strife and hope nationalisation, and victory and decline of the mining industry. Through the use of first class accounts, hundreds of photographs and illustrations, this compendium reveals how mining played such a dominant part in the lives of many people from the Yorkshire area. Covered is the disastrous 1984/1985 Miners Strike and subsequent pit closure programme, and looks at the effects that the strike had. Above all. this book is a tribute to coal miners and their families. (publishers review)
£16.99 + P&P
Yorkshire Mining Veterans,
Brian Elliott , Paperback , Size 235 x 170
Yorkshire Mining Veterans is an extraordinary collection of stories told by the Veterans of the mines. Their memories span nearly a century from the early 1900's to the great strike of 1984/85 as well as the pit closures of the 1990's. Miners all across the Yorkshire region from the Selby Coalfield to the old West Riding area in and around Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster and Sheffield share their experiences with the reader. Brian began his research prepared to explore the many roles of miners, working conditions and their way of life, but interviews uncovered more remarkable stories, especially relating to the period before nationalisation. Getting a job often meant leaving school on Friday and starting work either in terrible conditions on the pit top screens, described by a 99 year old veteran as Miltonic or On the haulage in the cold pit bottom. Incredibly, one man described his work as a young trammer in the 1930Õs, painfully pushing tubs along a low underground roadway using a candle as his source of light, a throw back to conditions a century or more earlier. A sprightly 93-year-old described an occasion when. as a young lad, he worked naked alongside his father and refused to make himself to make himself descent when the lady Mayor made a VIP visit. Set chronologically according to the age of the miner, the author profiles each of the 47 veterans and tells their individual stories based on his interviews with them. Their stories, all previously untold, together with a superb collection of photographs makes fascinating reading (publisher review)
£9.99 + p&p
mike
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BRITISH MINING DATABASE
http://britishmining.org.uk
SHROPSHIRE MINES TRUST
http://shropshiremines.org.uk
SNAILBEACH MINE
http://snailbeachmine.org.uk
TANKERVILLE MINE
http://shropshiremines.org.uk/tankerville/tankerville.htm
NAMHO CONFERENCE 2006
http://namhoconference.org.uk
MINES IN CYPRUS
http://shropshiremines.org.uk/cyprus/cyprus.htm
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