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"Gone are the days …….
I remember my grandfather coming home from the pits. He would come home as black as soot. His clothes would smell of coal. There was an old tin bathtub hanging outside on the wall which belonged to Grampy. He would scrub and scrub till the coal was gone, but it would never leave him, it was in his blood.
When I reached the age of 10, I was allowed to walk up the hill to the pit to wait for Gramp to come off his shift, and walk home with him. Up until then I was only allowed to wait at the garden wall and watch him come across the field.
In 1952 there was another explosion in the pit. My grandfather, together with all 100 other miners were trapped underground. It was devastating to the town. He was severely injured, the blast ripped a hole in his side which never healed. He survived for another 9 years after the blast, and died in 1961, at the age of 64.
I remember going to the chemist shop in the High Street every 3 days to get his supplies, large rolls of cotton wool wrapped in blue paper, gauze and bandages. Gramp couldn't make it to the chemist, he was suffering with chronic asthma and needed 2 canes to walk.
It's funny how our minds work, I can remember the Thursday after school when I went into the front room where Gramp was laying in bed. He was close to death and I knew it. He asked me to get rid of the mice that were running all over the clock. I ran to Gran and told her about it and she said I
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