Ron Clurow

Ron was born in 1937 in Annesley, Hucknall. A “little mining village.” Ron left school at 15 and started Linby Colliery straight away. He said “it was a natural thing for me to go into the pits because my dad was a miner, both my grandads were miners and my great grandma worked in a mine in South Wales.

Ron says, “I loved pit work to be honest.”

John Webster

John is 71 and was born in June 1940 in Bulwell, Nottingham.  He left school at 15 and went straight down the pit.  He was at Bestwood Colliery from 1955 to 1967 and then moved to Clifton Colliery for 2 years.  He left Clifton when he said he was told by the Union man “this pit will not close whilst I have breath in my body.”  So next month he moved to Linby.John says it was, “hard work at Bestwood where you carried your 4 slices of cheese and your water bottle and you had to snap whenever you got the chance.”

At Linby he found out that “they took cups of tea, onions with a salt pot and had their snap in the gates.”

Dennis Baxter

I was born in George Street, Hucknall. I left school at 15 and then spent a year in the hosiery trade and then went to Linby Colliery. I started at 16 and I was on the surface for 3 months and then I was in the pit bottom for 3 years. Then I went on to the surveying staff and I had 7 years as a linesman.

“Lining the gates up for the faces and lining the faces up for the machine so we didn’t get any bends in the faces.”

John Whetton

I am the youngest of this party and I started at the pit at 15.  I was an apprentice and I didn’t really start at the pit until a year later, after basic engineering training –

“I remember the first time I went down that gate and saw a real coal face and it was scary Ron, wasn’t it?”

Terry Simpson

I left school at 15 and went to Newstead Pit on the surface until I was 16 and then went down the Pit.  They sent me with an old feller there to learn all about haulage, taking supplies up on a haulage rope.I learnt that for about 6 months and then I was told I had to go ganging with a pony and they sent me with another youth who was in charge of the pony.So I did that but because of the waiting list I was about 18 and a half before I got on the coal face.  I was working on the coal face until I was 26 and then I got married and left the pit.

“We used to gang supplies down to the coal faces, but before this they asked if I wanted to put my name down for the coal face.  I said yes, because the money was a lot better.”