"
It was 1953 when I first went down the pit. I was 16 years old, and I only went down the pit because my younger brother Richard (Dick) started a few weeks earlier and he was earning more money than me – five pounds a week for five days. I had already done a year in the quarry – at two pounds and eighteen shillings for six days!
Anyway with some apprehension I made the move to the pit. At that time I didn’t know anything about horses apart from the ones the farmers used for ploughing, and I’d see them on carts being led through the village of South Anston, sometimes pulling snow ploughs in the winter, usually on the footpaths..."