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I don't swear,but the mention of the greedy wealthy coal owners makes me want to! When I was being born,my Mother was in Hospital,[in 1944],my Father collapsed and was taken to Hospital with a burst duodenal ulcer,seriously life threatened,at the same time..SO...because my Father wasn't at work at the pit,the coal owner sent the cowardly bailiffs around to my Mother's house in the middle of the night,when they knew most men would be down the pit in foreshift,so no risk of resistance,and threw [literally]all my mother's few belongings into the street..to house another miner's family who was able to go down the pit. My Mother had a nervous breakdown,and I was taken away from her..till she recovered..well that was the best treatment in the world for depression and a nervous breakdown..keep your newly born child away from you..never knowing if it was alive or not..and Choppington and Bedlington were being bombed at the time..yeah,I could easily swear at those evil greedy b......s..no apologies for getting wound up...

Canny - I don't know for sure why he was carried home but my guess would be the pit owners didn't want to fork out; remember these were the guys who stiffed the miners in the 1920s AND during WW2 when they attempted to reduce wages. They clearly wanted to pass on the cost to the family. My Grandfather returned to work and lasted underground until just after Nationalisation when he had to quit due to getting pneumoconiosis, commonly known as 'black lung disease'; he died of it in 1950. The NUM (for our younger viewers - The National Union of Mineworkers) in late 1948 fought the newly formed NCB (again, for our younger viewers - The National Coal Board) for compensation and my Grandfather was the first miner in th UK to get a payout from the NCB; my Mum told me it was £500 (today worth about £22,000).