JOHN Belcher you are just prejudiced and its time you stopped bleating about subjects you know very little about. I do not need to know what it is like to work in a colliery to become a Freeminer but I do work in a productive mine in the Forest of Dean producing coloured iron oxides red, brown, yellow and the much sought after purple, also mining various other grades of iron ore. Yes, working in a colliery is much more dangerous than working in an iron mine, because of the very unstable roof, in rushes of water and bad air such as Black damp (carbon dioxide) Stink Damp (sulphuretted hydrogen) Fire Damp (Methane) and of course there's Silicosis (black lung). These problems were created in the large collieries many where production was more important than people.
My freeminer uncle, Dick Porter worked in the collieries all his life; he took out the vacant Findall Mine from the Crown called Findall because it was mined for both iron and coal. When he decided to retire he did not sell his gale to the highest bidder he worked to the rules of the Mine Law Court he handed it back to the Crown where it could only be taken out by another Freeminer and Kia Warren was the next galee, thereby keeping all gales in the hands of the Freeminers. By selling gales to the highest bidder the Freeminers lost control and therefore became slaves in their own mines and many of the bad conditions they had to work under in the large collieries was of their own making. Uncle Dick used to say every mine is different, each mine has language all of its own and you have to learn that language, it speaks to you in a very gentle whisper, it will also give you signs, if you do not act immediately on these signs and whispers you do not get a second chance, the old man of the mine will have you. The reason there are so few accidents in the fissiles is because the Freeminers working in them practiced this philosophy.
All our family have worked underground from a very young age not because we were forced to but because we wanted to and I know of several young families who worked in the same way on the coal. You are just looking for things to find fault with why don't you try looking for things you can be pleased about and promote the Forest for a change?
You need to do some more studying and get some practical experience in to do your year and a day John you might be more interesting to listen to.
Elaine Morman
Freeminer