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Post by fifeminer on Dec 8, 2005 14:22:16 GMT -5
When it was the holiday time in the summer I dont know about anywhere else but in our part of Scotland when I was about 10years old we would look forward to the summer time when the miners would be on holiday and when they finished they had a sandbag with their working clothes in it to take home to get a guid wash and repair and instead of going straight home they would go to the pub or the club for a pint or two I used to collect my uncles and my fathers and some of the neighbours bags and also get their wages to give to their wifes it was all put in a leather bag I had so I didnt lose it, generally there was two of you and you would get all the bags in the barrow and as for the Aitken Pit it was all a uphill shove but at Five bob a bag it was a great days wage,then when you got to their houses their wifes would give us an apple or just a piece and jam that was when I decided I wanted to be a miner like my fathers father etc, my mother used to work on the tables that was where she met my father did you guys in your country have a job on the tables before you went for the underground training,jings it was cold in mornings on tables especially in wintertime but grand in the summer,Can you remember your first taste of snuff and all the different home made concoctions that many of the older miners used to make, well I better stop or I will continue my memoirs lolol
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Post by John on Dec 8, 2005 20:01:41 GMT -5
I started out life in the mining industry as an apprentice electrician in the early 1960's. Don't recall the first time I tried snuff, but at the time I smoked, so tried baccy though, never liked the taste so just took chewing gum with me. Old Lord Robens was the boss of the NCB when I started in the Nottingham coalfields.
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Post by Sam from Kent on Jan 1, 2011 17:44:09 GMT -5
I remember the snuff there was SP no1 (?) 99 and the Golden Cardinal, but anyone taking that was a bit suspect!!!
Remember going to the NUM conference at Perth in about 1971/72 became friends with a miner from Fife, Ian Culbertson, exchanged Christmas cards for several years, then his wife wrote to tell me that he sadly passed away. After nearly 40 years I still exchange Christmas Cards with his widow, though we have never met!
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