Many words have been written about the hardship endured by miners in pursuit of social justice, but little is recorded about the role of their womenfolk during this period. I shall attempt to therefore redress this omission in some small way, by referring to my own experiences and knowledge gained, through having been born and lived all my life in a mining community, indeed being the third son of a second generation of a mining family.

In brief, it could be said that the woman had a hard austere life. This would be too simple and totally inadequate. Their role was much more onerous and demanding than that as I shall briefly outline. Consider that the miner’s primary role was that of breadwinner doing a dangerous, physical, demanding job five or six days a weeks but which generally ended there. On the other hand, the wives had to run their homes within the constraints of a fortnightly wage, which could vary drastically each pay day, yet most managed to do so by careful management, ingenuity and frugal spending. Some miners lived in rent-free colliery houses, others in rented property in which case the first priority was to put aside the house rent to make sure that they were not evicted for rent arrears. Another payment which I recall was high on the priority list, was insurance to ensure that if illness or death occurred, that they were in a position to pay for whatever costs were incurred, including doctors’ bills! Then there were routine mundane chores such as shopping, washing, cooking, as well as bringing up a family, in some cases very large ones - indeed families of ten were not uncommon.

In most homes, elderly grandparents resided as part of the family (in my own happy family environment, my grandfather, grandmother and an elderly aunt also lived. Incidently, two or three of my cousins came to our house for their summer holidays - crowded yes, but wonderful memories!). It should be remembered that nursing homes, state welfare, social services, free medical care and family benefits and the like were non-existent. Discipline was invariably administered by the Mother, generally fair but exceedingly swift and strict. It should also be remembered these were the days before the National Health Service, or immunisation for protection against many killer or disabling diseases such as smallpox, measles and diphtheria, poliomyelitis, whooping cough, tuberculosis as well as malnutrition to name but a few, but now thankfully virtually a thing of the past. If illness befell anyone in the household, the womenfolk, very often with willing help freely given by neighbouring women, would nurse the patients, or console the family if a bereavement occurred. Generally, the menfolk worked in the mines, but seldom in the same shift, consequently, preparation of meals, washing and mending pit clothes was a continuous chore. Washing day, invariably on a Monday, was a nightmare! The clothes were boiled in a set pot in the scullery, scrubbed, possed in a tub, then put through a mangle to remove surplus water - then put outside on a line to dry, if the weather was fine - if not, placed on a clothes-horse in front of a roaring fire to dry, with steam everywhere - infact the conditions would have put the present day Turkish Bath to shame!.

Most miners’ homes had large kitchen fireplaces with a metal range attached and each week these were blackleaded and shone like a new pin when finished. Miners received a tonne of coal every 14 days which was free, but was infact part of the miners’ wages. The coal was tipped onto the footpath or road which was then put into a coalhouse - again generally by the Mother, sometimes with the help or hindrance of her children. These are but a few of the daily and regular chores which womenfolk had to undertake. The menfolk, when not at work, were very often involved with their hobbies, with whippet dog racing, pigeon racing, gardening and football being among the most popular. Sadly, heavy drinking and “pitch-in-toss” gambling (throwing two pennies into the air and gambling with someone else as to whether the pennies landed two heads or two tails) were common with the resulting shortfall in family income making the wives tasks even more difficult than usual. I could go on and explain that the women in their “spare time” were engaged in mat-making, cooking, dress-making and so on but I shall end here and leave it to you, the reader, to be the judge as to which gender had the most unenviable task.