Point teken, Adie. I could write em a lot broader than a do, but I have to consider our colonial brothers and sisters, and all t'southern softies.
I just found this thread and I have to say, in a weird way it's making me feel ever so much better about my own injuries! Makes a broken pelvis and shattered elbow seem like a true walk in the park. Thanks, @Sprinter and @Repooh!
That reminds me of a day I'll never forget after fifty years, when we where at school we were playing a game of pirates ( might be called tag else ware ) and to try and get away from the pirate a lad in my class slid down the outside of the PE wall bars unfortunately there are hooks on the side to attach them to the wall when they are folded up, one of his bollocks was torn off and slid across the floor, he ended up firing on one cylinder but happily had 3 kids later on.
Sadly my friend, I have a lot worse memories than that, I was a member of the Volunteer Mines Rescue team when I worked for British coal (formerly National Coal Board) and I still suffer stress after retrieving the remains of miners that where killed in accidents with coal cutting machines, every year in my 20 years at Murton Colliery in Co Durham at least 2 miners where killed each year at that one colliery, look at the list below, and when you have read how many miners died at that one colliery, then I will tell you we where a lucky colliery compared to the rest. http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/m006.htm
The numbers killed are staggering @David Cooper , I cannot even start to understand the impact on you having to attend these tragic events. I don't think that these numbers of accidents would be torlerated now...
I attended 5 really bad one's but the two fatal accidents involving a friend and an old school mate where the worst one's , after we brought them out of the pit we where sent home but where expected back at work the next day, we didn't get any therapy or anything like that. we just got told to get on with it.
That's what we where taught in the old days Wessa, the same as my dad who did the WW11 and Korea, be a man and get on with it.
This is the worst single disaster in British mining history. 439 lives lost in one accident. http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/s235.htm
I worked down t'pit when I came out of t'navy. I'd only been down 2 weeks, and still under Close Personal Supervision, when someone I knew got killed in an accident. I saw some horrible accidents and injuries. You certainly had to have your wits about you.
My father worked in at least 3 Lancashire collieries in and around St. Helens (Sintellinz) throughout the 50's and 60's and was a coal face worker, including a coalface machine cutter, for many years before he was pensioned off with pneumoconiosis in about 1970. I have vague, early childhood memories of him coming home unshowered and looking like he'd been fully immersed - fully dressed - in black powder making the whites of his eyes appear to glow. He used to wear a belt he'd made out of the coal conveyor material - very hard wearing compound of bonded fabric and hard rubber - and I can recall how that stung when laid hard across my bare backside for some minor misdemeanour! Eeee... tell kidsa terday tha' an thi wunt beleev ya .............. Not exactly 'happy memories' but not, in any way, regretted. My father died in his early seventies of COPD caused by the coal dust, but not helped by his smoking habit.
I know (and appreciate) EXACTLY what you mean. I think it's "the melancholy" that prompted the memory - and me to post it!