There is an excellent book about mine workers in Scotland - The Camerons, by Robert Crichton. You'll enjoy it. Fiction based on fact, like How Green Was My Valley, about miners in Wales. Mummy was with a theatre group in Wales early in the 1930's, at the time of a strike. With the mines shut down the town drew back into itself like a snail into its shell, hoarding money for food. The theatre closed its doors as tickets went unsold. The cast, who would have been paid from the box office, were stranded. They pooled what money they had and my mother drew out Postal Savings. A kind local man with a lorry offered to take them back to London if they could just pay for the petrol, as they didn't have enough for train fares... I doubt the mine owners missed a meal! Poor people have never received the rspect they deserve. One of my GGG's, James Pocock, was an illiterate soldier who fought with the Cameron Highlanders through the Peninsula Campaigns and was crippled when shot through both thighs at Waterloo. He received five medals - and a pension of pennies. The noble Duke of Wellington said the soldiers who fought for him were "the scum of the earth." Should there be a hereafter, I intend to have a word with His Wretched Grace which he won't like, about that remark! Sonia Murray Biloxi, MS USA Snip> -----Original Message----- From: Elizabeth Reid [mailto:bluebel2@tpg.com.au] Subject: [MLN] Re: Mine Worker Records Reading this reply jogged my memory of something I read in a book a few years ago. Miners or colliers were classed by the mine owners and the 'upper' classes as the lowest form of the working classes and humans life in general. I was shocked when I read that and it angered me at the time because my Father (thankfully only for a few years), my Grandfathers on both sides and most of my male relatives were colliers. I always admired them for the dangerous work they did, my Grandfather was a brusher down the pit, they say the most dangerous of all the jobs. They worked all their lives in atrocious conditions to afford them who looked down on them the luxuries of the times. >

I read a book by Ken Follett, 'A Place called Freedom' which I can reccomend. The prologue reads:- (The author was gardening in his flower patch and finds a old package in an oil cloth bag....) The other item was an oil cloth bag. That too was rotten, and when i touched it with my gardening gloves it disintegrated. Inside was an iron ring about six inches across. It was tarnished but the oil cloth bag had prevented it from rusting. It looked crudely made, probably by a village blacksmith, and I first thought it might have been part of a cart or plow. But why had someone wrapped it in oil cloth to preserve it? There was a break in the ring and it had been bent. I began to think of it as a collar that some prisoner had been forced to wear. When the prisoner escaped, the ring had been broken with a heavy blacksmith’s tool, and then bent to get it off. I took it to the house and started to clean it up.....as I polished it with a rag , an inscription became visible. It was engraved in old fashioned curly writing, and it took me a while to figure it out, but this is what it said: ’’THIS MAN IS THE PROPERTY OF SIR GEORGE JAMISSON OF FIFE’’ It’s here on my desk, besides the computer. I use it as a paperweight. I often pick it up and turn it in my hands, rereading that inscription.If the iron collar could talk, I think to myself, what kind of story would it tell..... this goes back to the days of indentured workers, it's not pretty. My background includes miners from Fife and I am proud of them and my heritage. moira Gil & Sonia Murray wrote: >There is an excellent book about mine workers in Scotland - The Camerons, by >Robert Crichton. You'll enjoy it. Fiction based on fact, like How Green >Was My Valley, about miners in Wales. Mummy was with a theatre group in >Wales early in the 1930's, at the time of a strike. With the mines shut >down the town drew back into itself like a snail into its shell, hoarding >money for food. The theatre closed its doors as tickets went unsold. The >cast, who would have been paid from the box office, were stranded. They >pooled what money they had and my mother drew out Postal Savings. A kind >local man with a lorry offered to take them back to London if they could >just pay for the petrol, as they didn't have enough for train fares... > >I doubt the mine owners missed a meal! > >Poor people have never received the rspect they deserve. One of my GGG's, >James Pocock, was an illiterate soldier who fought with the Cameron >Highlanders through the Peninsula Campaigns and was crippled when shot >through both thighs at Waterloo. He received five medals - and a pension of >pennies. The noble Duke of Wellington said the soldiers who fought for him >were "the scum of the earth." Should there be a hereafter, I intend to have >a word with His Wretched Grace which he won't like, about that remark! > >Sonia Murray >Biloxi, MS USA > >Snip> > >-----Original Message----- >From: Elizabeth Reid [mailto:bluebel2@tpg.com.au] >Subject: [MLN] Re: Mine Worker Records > >Reading this reply jogged my memory of something I read in a book a few >years ago. Miners or colliers were classed by the mine owners and the >'upper' classes as the lowest form of the working classes and humans life in >general. I was shocked when I read that and it angered me at the time >because my Father (thankfully only for a few years), my Grandfathers on both >sides and most of my male relatives were colliers. I always admired them >for the dangerous work they did, my Grandfather was a brusher down the pit, >they say the most dangerous of all the jobs. They worked all their lives >in atrocious conditions to afford them who looked down on them the luxuries >of the times. > > > > >

A cousin of mine, Eve Pryde Roberts has published an essay about The Scottish Coalmining Ancestry of Joseph Anthony Pryde 1909 - 1985 and included this: "in 1606 Scottish Parliament passed an Act making Scottish colliers into serfs (slaves). This Act declared "that no person within this realm (Scotland) shall hire or conduce any colliers or coalbearers without a sufficient testimonial of their master whom they last served, and the said colliers and coalbearers are to be esteemed repute and held as thieves and punished in their bodies for stealing themselves from their masters". In 1647 another Act made it illegal for colliers to change masters other than on 1st December annually. Elinor.

Regarding the remark about the"scum of the earth": apparently Wellington went on to say, "But see what fine soldiers we have made of them!" which makes it not quite so bad! Best wishes, Sheena Ireland Poor people have never received the rspect they deserve. One of my GGG's, James Pocock, was an illiterate soldier who fought with the Cameron Highlanders through the Peninsula Campaigns and was crippled when shot through both thighs at Waterloo. He received five medals - and a pension of pennies. The noble Duke of Wellington said the soldiers who fought for him were "the scum of the earth." Should there be a hereafter, I intend to have a word with His Wretched Grace which he won't like, about that remark! Sonia Murray Biloxi, MS USA