Miners | Life down the Pit | Good Afternoon |1973
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- Life down the pits - Hard work, poverty and danger were to be expected if you had a life down the pits. For many Miners your working life started at 14 years of age when you left school . Respected journalist Mary Parkinson speaks to 2 retired miners and the wife of a miner about the how they eked out a living on a day to day basis. First transmitted 17/10/1973
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Quote: VT:8493
She cut him off at the end when he was about to criticise the establishment.
These people are incredible. Real heroes and so humble.
That was really awkward! He had the right to express that opinion.
@@Samanthamidnight888 Aye it was, I very much enjoyed it until she rudely cut him off. I have a different opinion of this lady now.
He got completely shutdown there. Unbelievable.
@@westerncherokeewireless642 she cuts him off the whole way through the man who speaks of losing babies in childbirth and how they had to take a deceased miner home in a cart.
@@westerncherokeewireless642 She is Michael Parkinson`s wife.
...YAY! It’s the great Yorkshirewoman Miss Edna again, from the Christmas interview with two other ladies...:)!
a tip : watch movies on flixzone. Me and my gf have been using it for watching lots of of movies these days.
@Jaime Richard yea, I have been using flixzone} for years myself :D
@@jaimerichard3681 what has that got to do with this video?
@@josephlewis347 does that have anything to do with this video?
My granddaddy was a miner in Scotland, from the 20’s until the 50’s. Worked the mines all his life. He had six children to provide for, one handicapped. He was a hardworking man who loved his family. God rest his soul. ❤
Churchill was correct to support eugenics.
It’s people like this that provide the standard of living we enjoy today. The coal these men mined power the innovations we enjoy today.
Tough, dangerous work much respect for these men and the women who stood behind them!
As soon as he says "we were in terrible conditions for a very very rich country", they SUDDENLY need to go. So quickly that he's cut off mid-sentence.
Right!
Sad
That happened because journalists were and still are one of the filthiest sort of servants of power. Period. Everywhere in the world! Puah.
I wish Edna Brennan had written her memories and published them, I'd love to have read that book
Please keep uploading these vital social histories. It must never be forgotten.
I was 3 when this was broadcast, my Grandfather was born 1895 (my parent last born of large family). I have very little knowledge of him and have never seen a photograph so this gives a little incite into his life, he was a miner.
It’s disgusting how the miners were treated...literally “the rich getting richer on the backs of the poor and uneducated”. When there is an understanding that not until people treat each other with love and respect the worlds always going to be an awful place to abide in.
Good luck then hippy!!🤣
Be careful… that sounds like communism 🙀
You're spot on Gillian. God told us how to treat each other for good reason because it's the only way the world will function correctly.
Well said. Since the closure of the mines the UK has gone to the dogs, rich dogs, multinational dogs, who care only to make money from their already vast amounts of it they have stockpiled, oft in offshore accounts, so they do not have to pay taxes and contribute to a crumbling society. The Lord said treat thy neighbour as thyself, and in many of those mining and working class towns, many folk pulled it off, until the rug was pulled from beneath their feet, as they did not fit in with the rich man's plans. The laws of karma will send shudders through humanity very soon, for the wrong in the world. And all we had to do was love one another, in its truest sense. SAD.@@CannabrannaLammer
Are you nine?
A few years ago, I was explaining to my students how maybe a generation or two before ours, people did the same jobs as their forbears. Some couldn't believe it. Then I got them to interview their grandparents about what their parents were doing. Quite a few of their great grandparents were miners just like these good people, or on the docks, in foundries etc. We talked about how these people basically held up the UK for ages, though their jobs were literally ripped from under their feet.
Yes, and now the Conservative Party supports new mines and the Labour Party opposes them. Thatcher was the greatest de-industrialised person ever! Crazy how times change
@@kincaidwolf5184
To a degree you are right about Thatcher, but don't forget Labour closed far more pits than the Tories did.
@@trytellingthetruth.2068 No they did not. Mines MIGHT have closed while the labour party were in power, but they were closed for reasons like unworkable. The tories closed them to deliberately destroy union power, which is why you now have "fire and rehire" [now banned in last few days thanks to labour] and zero hours contracts..
@@caerleon87
"Mines MIGHT have been closed under the Labour party".
253 pits closed under Wilson.
115 pits closed under Thatcher.
An excellent piece of social history. Thank you for posting. This is a first-hand account of mining in the UK probably dating back to the 1920s, assuming the interviewees are about 60 in this video. One of the more important videos on TH-cam.
The 70ts
They cut off the Scotsman mid rant. I wanted to hear what he had to say.
Such hard lives they had! My grandmother's father was crushed to death down a mine two months before she was born in 1932. He was covering the shift of a man that was going to a wedding. The poor bugger felt so guilty about what happened he took his own life. So two families grew up without a father as a result!
That is so heartbreaking. I hope his family was compensated for loss of income, but I wouldn’t hold my breath 😢
That's awful 😢
@yasminm7157 they didn't get compensation in those days, nothing at all. If they lived in a house owned by the coal board there's story's of widows with children been made to leave within 2 weeks of the miner being killed. We today cannot even really fathom the lives they had or lived. Absolute heros all 3 of them.
Edna Brennan, what a wonderful woman. I hope her offspring know what what stock they’re from. I envy Mary being able to interview her.
Such a shame she didn't write and publish her memoirs, what a fantastic book that would be to read
th-cam.com/video/P0_U1mvZbBU/w-d-xo.html. This lady is also in a Christmas edition of the show. Salt of the earth! God bless them all.
George Orwells road to Wigan Pier gives an excellent account of pit life, similar to these fine people.
My dads uncle told me of a pit miner he knew. He said sometimes the seam was so ridiculously thin that you would be laying flat, pushing coal behind you with your hands and then trying to flick it further backwards with your feet. They had guys die down there and they would tie a rope on their ankle and drag them out backwards. Eventually he ended up with the British army in India where they shot protestors. And eventually to a car factory in Australia where he retired.
“Tha’s more lakes than plays in Cas, tha knos”, was something Leeds miners would say. My grandfather b.1899 was a miner. He was caught in a pit roof fall, his forehead was badly cut. The first aid treatment down below was to rub coal dust in the wound. Grandad said the coal dust was pure and it helped the blood to congeal to stop the bleeding. He had blue scars across his forehead for life.
The coal dust tattoo his head
Yes, I saw plenty of blue scars in the pit showers, perhaps that's why many miners obtained tatoos, to cover up the oft deep, and long scars.@@oreogavinthecat5025
Anyone who doesn't appreciatete how bad this life really was might enjoy george Orwells "The Road to Wigan Pier" its on TH-cam now for free as an audiobook ! God Bless the miners and their Wives ! ❤🙏
Thames TV, please can you release the whole of these programmes?
Edna...absolutely love this lady, 💪 oldskool x
They sure don’t make ‘em like that anymore 👊🏼👏🏼
Great honest hard working men, something we see less and lees of in modern society.
Every snowflake of todays generation need to watch this. Cant say enough how much respect i have for Edna, Joe and Bob. Heroes, all 3 of them.
It’s beautiful strong folk like these that Instil within me a deep sense of pride, we owe them everything.
Balance them against the people of today and we have our answer to what went wrong with our nation.
Comfort breeds apathy. When there are relatively no serious threats, we look for them where we can.
We have found them, threats to our ego. Oh how privileged we are to find the time!!!!
This one is heartbreaking but extremely appreciated. Sadly these stories are hidden from the many. Very humbling. I think there's an accent here going extinct within the next 50 years
The Bentley colliery disaster occurred in 1931, which gives an idea of the setting for these fascinating accounts.
"Two foot seam" - imagine crawling in a tunnel 2 feet high with the sharp coal scraping the skin off your back. It's unimaginable. These people were exploited and now they've been abandoned.
Good Afternoon was obviously a fantastic programme. This is an amazing discussion. What an astonishing piece of social history.
My Welsh great grandfather had to work in the coal mines when he was only 9 years old. My grandmother told us the conditions were so bad that he left the UK as soon as he was 20 years old and swore he would never return. He never did. Even when his mother was dying. It was very sad.
Where did he go?
I knew Edna's sister Rhoda very well, and I'm friends with several nephews and nieces, who I still see regularly around the village.
I’d say they’d have plenty of stories to tell. I’d say Edna has probably sadly passed away by now?
Wow!! If you don’t mind me asking, when was Edna born? Edna comes across a lovely, loving lady x
@@jamesb1647 1910.
Is this is Yorkshire
Probably. Mary Parkinson lived in Barnsley with Michael who just passed. Most of the pits were around there.@@SQP-bf4yg
I notice how Mary slipped back into her Yorkshire accent while speaking to her fellow Yorkshire people.
Heart wrenching. I’m haunted just listening to these harrowing stories. I can’t begin to fully imagine it.
my grandfather was a miner god bless him had health issues the rest of his life.
Hard Times for so many... No wonder the common saying of "you don't know you're born" was said by so many of my mum's generation.
So many drama queens/attention seekers that post on the likes of Facebook because somebody just didn't quite behave the way they expected that day, should watch this.
Then they'd see just how pathetic their gripe really was.
Or the ones that need a safe space or that cry because you didn't play pretend with them about being a man when they're a woman etc. None of that shyte back in those days. People were too poor to think about that crap.
@@basilmagnanimous7011 I think what you're disregarding is the advances in technology that dragged third world countries up with us. We couldn't communicate nearly as easily. You know really that these other countries are prospering now because we have for so long and the world is becoming an even ground for most. Some longer than others.
Your whole ideology is nonsense backed by our own racisms and sexisms. You are wrong in thinking a white policy or a European superiority would still be happening today, in any one of your make belief worlds. People just dont see colour like you do or where they're from, people just don't care. At the end of the day, we didn't want to work slave labour brutish jobs anymore and we've escaped that. If the cost of that is a closer planet so be it but you're really quite wrong about it all as far as I see it. You sit there believing these uber intelligent sorts who died in the war, undoubtedly the sons of the rich, wouldn't want us all cleaning their boots! You should be more grateful at those lesser than you screaming for you to be able to sit there now and write that huge comment.
And you asked how its working out for america. Really well actually. All this stupid news that comes from America is because they really can all talk about what they want, vote who they want and live at a bare minimum, a comfortable existence. There's way more variables to the world than you've listed and I am sorry you have inherent traits that make you think you are superior to anyone.
Both my grandads started down the pit before their 14th birthday. So did my great uncle. He was born in 1920, so it would have been the summer of 1934 when he started. I remember him telling me about his early working life, he had only been in the job a few days when he saw a man get crushed to death. All he was told was 'Get used to it kid, you'll see stuff like that plenty more times'.
Richard Burton talks about the pride with which the miners in Wales regarded themselves, and how he managed to get all his brothers out of the pit except one who refused, preferring to remain a miner.
Burton disabled his own brother.
My grandad fought in the first world war and was a miner,they were tough in those days.
The old saying from the 1800s was that they'd rather a person die than a pit pony. Because a pit pony cost them money. No compo or NOTHING if a miner died. Just "it was an accident" then hire another guy a few days later.
loving all these old interviews.
Lovely people. And tough.
Nothing but a dogs life. Major respect for these men
As if any dog these days would be subjected to such things. People are nuts remember. They give their dogs more than their own kids.
@@CannabrannaLammerSadly so true 🤢
Compare these men with todays young'ns, head to toe in North Face and their little man bags! 😂 The UK's in trouble me thinks.
Thank you for uploading these.
Unimaginable. The good old days. Apparently.
Some call it white privilege.
It highlights how the human spirit pulls together in tough times. I was there in a mining village in the late 50s and 60s, when rationing had only just stopped, and many people's lives were still affected by the grief of two world wars, and the hundreds lost to explosions, and poor conditions in the pits. It is a feeling that is hard to put on paper, but there was always a sense it could be your last day, the men and women were born to work, and graft, the surroundings were austere, all were tough, yet ironically, many were unusually kind and conscious of the need to help one's neighbours. What is sad is the immense human suffering it took to forge such wonderful communities.
Grandy was a miner who worked up to pit deputy, he lived at Doncaster. His father was a pit sinker.
Amazing. Thanks for posting.
Very important videos!
We were a mining family from NE England. it was awful work. One of m,y great uncles went to prison briefly during world war 2 as he refused to go back down the pit even to help the war effort, because it was so bad for his health. One ancestor in the 1800s was down the pit aged 10 years.
My grandma was on the top at 8-9, illiterate, at the pit that caused the Strike...Cortonwood. Lived on a pit estate next to it, called the Concrete, it was as ahrd as it sounds! Few hundred yards away was a mine called Lundhill, which blew up along with a spate of other mines in the late 1850s, leaving most of the women in the pit village without husbands, brothers and sons. Hundreds were killed in those days!
My fathers uncle was a miner, he was killed in a pit accident I always remember him telling me the coffin was that cheap his bodily fluids were seeping through, but on the flip side his widow, my fathers auntie was given a third of a ton of coal a month for life in compensation in the summer months she ended up giving a lot of it away, hard times.
Omg kids of 14 going thru 2 ft seams skinning their back as he says Callous. A dead miner who was carried home and no managers there to support anyone. Absolutely horrible.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.
What hardship they suffered. Appalling!
nice to see smoking on TV again! man i miss it in bars/restaurants/bowling. people and propaganda have lost their damn minds over it. its tobacco smoke. not mustard gas, jesus christ.
I'm suffering from claustrophobia just listening to this 😟
This was broadcast 7 days after I was born..
Should have let the man tell his story of day two and beyond. He had just sad his world was rocked and the announcer dropped it. Horrifying
Being in my late 20’s I’m only now watching and learning about the miners, the strikes and all the rest as i find it very interesting.
I can’t even imagine what these men went through and also the women at home. I freely admit myself and my generation don’t know the meaning of hard work like this. Respect to all these men… apart from the one who wouldn’t give him a bandage for boils, I can imagine there were a few so called ‘men’ like that down there.
I would say many of us know what hard work is. just because it looks different than it did in the early 1900s doesn't mean it's less difficult. have you ever worked in fast food? that's hard fucking work. working in retail is a nightmare. there are so many difficult jobs. just because some work isn't as physically demanding doesn't mean it's any less exploitative or demanding in other ways.
don't put yourself at risk of believing that workers have it easy or easier today. for the things that are easier (because there are things that are objectively better than before), they're only so because they were fought for and because people keep fighting for them.
and don't unintentionally demean the people around you by claiming they don't know how to work hard. that would be a cruel and a rude thing to do.
@@sethescope I was a chef for over 6 years on terrible money for the work and hours I put in, I also worked in retail straight from school which was shit. My job now is mentally straining but I’m not sure how you can compare working in fast food to going down a pit, sure they can both be hard but I know which one I would rather do.
I’m not sure where you’re from but you only need to step outside or turn the tv on to realise a lot of this generation don’t know, or don’t want to know hard work and have it a lot easier than families did back then and before you say it, yes I do know there’s people out there still struggling etc.
I thought you would be able to work out that obviously I know there are hard workers of any age out there, the guys I work with work hard, they’re just outnumbered. You’re telling me not to do something like I have to listen? I will continue to think the way I do because unfortunately that’s how it is.
@@jwoodzy3764 I apologize for not being clearer that I wasn't trying to attack you or something; given that this is the TH-cam comments, I can't exactly blame you for defaulting to defensiveness and insulting me when that's basically how it works here lol
it's just exhausting to constantly see "kids these days have it so easy!!!!" as though modern people are just so fucking lazy and weak and we have no idea what it means to work hard. yeah, our lives are much different and thank god many of us don't work in conditions like coal mines, although it's absolutely incorrect to say that No One™️ does. I'm not saying you're saying this in such a broad way, but it deserves to be said that working conditions depend on class, geographical location, immigration status in one's location, etc
I just wholeheartedly reject this idea that people have it easy today.
and if you're in a place where you can accept feedback, defaulting to "go outside and touch grass" makes it seem like you're not ready to contend with an alternative viewpoint. it makes it seem like you can't tolerate the idea that someone else might have a legitimate point, even if you disagree. I'm just offering this feedback so, if you're in a place where you're ready for it, you can consider refining your approach to disagreement with people you don't know anything about.
hopefully this helps clarify. again, it's not like I can blame you for going on the attack immediately considering this is TH-cam.
I have worked in fast food, retail, on building sites as a labourer, in factories and a foundry. And none of it comes close to the work these guys had to do in the conditions they did.
The reason things are no where near as bad now is simple- fights hard won by the unions. Support those striking now for fair pay and conditions as while things may not appear as hard, those at the top still want to cut corners and keep the money to themselves, just like what Bob was trying to say at the end when he was cut off
"I've had a hard day at work today". Actually Cardinal Biggles, you've had a holiday compared to these men.
Real men.
May the gods bless these people and may their memories live on for their families.
I was too young to understand or remember that period of time as I was just three and Play School age. However, I do remember the Miners Strike of 1984 and Arthur Scargill well, being fourteen by then.
Coal mining should have been phased out during the 1960s.
Respect for these gentlemen. How Corbyn and the Labour party has now let the U.K down
If you think Corbyn let it down than you have no idea about labour sir Ker is the disgrace NOT corbyn
🤣
Kinnock...and plenty of others! It will not be forgotten!
Once a miner, always a miner.
I remember my Mum telling me she watched her Mother picking pieces of coal from my Grandad's back from him being down the pit in the late 1920s and early 1930's.
I’ll bet these chaps weren’t kept awake at night wondering about what pronouns to use!
True grit, making footballs from pigs bladders 🐖 They sure don’t me ‘em like that anymore
This makes me want to listen to 'Part of the Union' by the Strawbs.
Always did his hands int pot before he'd go to work. Am I right washing your hands in piss before you go to work got to say this job has to be one of the cruelest/hardestway to make a living. Imagine today's worker's
Never mind the workers, the bosses are still at it.
I didn't like the host. She seems so insincere, a real lack of actual empathy. She just sits there smiling as they're telling her about really brutal experiences, and then she just cuts them off dismissively whenever she decides she has a thought everyone needs to hear.
It's Mary Parkinson, she's from a working class mining town herself, Doncaster
@@mitchamcommonfair9543 yes, and?
Tom D
I thought the same about her but couldn't have articulated it as perfectly as you have.
No dinner or any Xmas presents
Playing marbles for a penny and give it their all to win. Now that’s pressure
The working class had it so difficult back in the day. They don't realise how good they have it now. That's why I get annoyed when the racists go on about how better it was in the past !
A
And young people now talk about white male privilege??
History it may have been, but long gone by the early 1950's when things were improving under the NCB, those reporters were trying to make out it was like 1920's working conditions not 1970's conditions. In 1973 somewhere in the order of 75% of collieries were mechanized on the coal face. My first pit was 100% mechanized, last hand got face was 15's which finished well before I started my training in 64.
Well they aren’t talking about the 1970s. They are clearly elderly people speaking about times past such as the earlier part of the century. These people are here in their 70s in the 1970s. So do the math.
shocking way to earn a livng barbaric
This us titled wrong it should be
"life down pitt. Aye it were hard life an owt bout it. Taday? Eee Dont know irr born"
Out to send you down there. See how long your smart attitude would last. My relatives were at the other end of the food chain. Mine owners in Wales and Australia.
These were people who lived through shit. This wasn't a comedy sketch. 50 years ago if you had made your statement in public in a mining area you would have been kicked senseless. Mind you in your case that might have not taken much effort.
They're dignity and humility are clearly lost upon your immature lack of respect.
Rainblazer
14 years old??? Come off it, the vast majority of fellers in their 30's when I started at the pit in 1964, started work at 15. For many years the minimum age to go underground was 16yrs, and you weren't allowed anywhere underground until you did your twenty days UG training, then 20 days under close personal supervision of an experience man. Coal face training was 20 days under strict close personal supervision of an authorized training instructor, in my case an electrician who was authorized to supervise apprentices for training. POVERTY??? Shit, all the face workers I worked with in the 60's prior to the New Power Loader Agreement were on over 50 quid a week, high pay back then, day wage men were lower paid. When I came out my time I was on 18 quid a week plus shift, U/G. water and grease money, and I had almost unlimited overtime. My dad was on 14 quid a week driving trucks for a living. Nobody I worked with in the 60's at the pits was in poverty.
...while I realise this’ll likely fall on ‘blind eyes’, this interview was 1973, and at whatever age these gentlemen were, surely they didn’t start working in 1964,’at 14’; likely maaany years before....
They are probably referring to working in the mines in the 1930s and 1940s. If not earlier.
They are reflecting upon they're earlier introduction to mining as mere boys in the 1930s. Mrs Brannan actually cites the Bentley pit disaster of 1932 when a 22 year old was killed and his body was never recovered. There's no doubt their accounts are accurate and genuine. Way before your time by 30 odd years before the impact of Trade Unions and post ww2 reforms. improvements
You’re in a different timeframe altogether.
They're retired and speaking in 1973, so they would have probably started in the 1930s.
And the miners screamed to be allowed to work in the mines. Ooohh! Can’t close them! Who the F in their right mind would volunteer for a lifetime of subterranean suffering?? Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. No sympathy for these absolute Troglodytes, but I don’t even think they want sympathy. In some, almost religious martyrdom sense, they actually relish and bask in pride at their clueless stupidity.
Has it occurred to you that this was the only work available.
It was a matter of working down the pit or seeing you family suffer in hunger and poverty.
These men were heroes!
You've never been hungry, have you?
What a foolish response to their hard work, our society wouldn’t be a fraction of what it is today without them fuelling us for so many years!
Its a comment like that , that makes me think Andrew tates right about you 🤣
I'm very glad that you have never experienced poverty or seemingly any material suffering. I'm glad you have never been in a position where you or the people around you have never had to choose between physical safety and survival. you are very lucky, and while your luck might mean that you haven't developed the capacity yet to practice critical thinking, I'm still glad that you've never at least been in danger of starving or dying.