About the contributor

Life for me started when I was born Feb 28 1929,I was the second child by my Mum&Dad, two girls followed me 7yrs& 10 yrs later .Dad was a miner at Darfield Main Colliery a Deputy to finish his years he died at 58 yrs, Mum was from a family of 18 children, 5 sets of twins but they did not survive a good thing in those days perhaps, money was not great to say the least. Grandad worked at Wombwell Main Colliery and his brother was the Manager I think at that time,he had to work to feed his lot of siblings,but the ones that lived got to good ages to finish with.
My family were a happy lot and we all tried in our own ways to help Mum/Dad,we had an allottment and we kept ourselves well fed and had Hens, Pigs and you had to register any pigs that we had because of the Rationing of meat,but one could and did tell little white lies of how many we did have,things like Pork meat were a nice thing to have in one's cellar and all the joints were sold to good neighbours for the scraps that they gave us to feed these luxery animals,home grown Veg,and eggs were a welcome sight on the table, good days.Lotsof things were done in our town to help the War,collections for MTBs,Boats Aircraft and helping with the Parcels to our lads overseas,not many young lads about from 1939/45, one lad down the street was called up and he was gone after the fisrt week he joined up,he was 20 I beleive, still things were hard then, and I went to the Pit we had little A or O Levels then you sought a job and got a job for self satisfaction non of this going on the Dole and getting money, you had to earn what you got and you looked after what you got for later in life my Wage for a week was £1-25 shillings, I got 2/6 pence spending money out of that, Mum had the rest until I was to pay here Board money later on.I got married at 23yrs, Mum said I was too young but I did and it has been good for me and my Wife 53 yrs to date&still going OK. Back to me now,I went to night school at 15 to get on in life, and finished up as a Mine Surveyor,1947/62 and then left before the closing of the pits in the 60s, and went into Local Gov. in Coventry, later moved on to Derbyshire CC.at Matlock for 25 yrs and that was my best years working for a living,worked on most of the Roads/M/Ways in Derbyshire enjoyed every minute, I retired at 60yrs because of modern technical info, take over for modern Surveyors using digital stuff, they could not produce the handrawn plans and levellings that we were used to.Retired in 1989 and we lived in Derbyshire 37 yrs,but we have gone back to our roots which is Barnsley, Yorkshire to be back whithin the Family area and we are settled again I think so hoping for a few more happy years yet, playing C/G Bowls at Darfield