Following your father into work was the order of the day when l left school in the 1950s.
My father Jim worked his whole life in the coal mines progressing from a carting boy to driving the winding engine at Camerton Colliery and Old Mills Colliery Paulton.
I started as an apprentice engineer when l was still 14 years of age, l had to wait 6 weeks before l could go underground at Old Mills training pit, l couldn’t wait.
After working at Kilmersdon and Writhlington during the school holidays during my 5 year apprenticeship period l ended up at Norton Hill Colliery until it closed in 1966.
I made some great friends at Norton Hill many coming to my marriage to Teresa in 1963.
After Norton Hill closed l joined a group which visited the three remaining pits to help with engineering jobs.
The largest job we helped with was removing the electric winding engine from Norton Hill and installing it at Writhlington Pit during the miners annual holidays the last week in July and the first week in August in 1966.
The last two pits Kilmersdon and Writhlington closed in 1973.
I joined the Somerset Miners Welfare Trust as a trustee in 2013, taking the chair in 2020 with a completely new set of trustees.
Over the past four years we have supported the retired NCB employees and widows with meals and days out coach trips.
We have put up many 7ft metal miners close to where coal mines existed keeping the memory’s alive on into the future.
A year long program on local radio Somer Valley FM called “ When Coal Was King” proved a great success.
I interviewed many ex miners, they had lovely stories about their difficult job down the mines to share with the listeners.
With the metal miners and the radio program at last we have people talking about coal mining in the area, some didn’t know there were coal mines in Somerset.