As I Live and Breathe!

I was privileged to grow up in a market town.   Unlike children of farm workers in an earlier age, I was under no pressure to follow my father on the land because no other jobs were available.  In fact, quite the opposite applied.  If I'd grown up on a farm as he had, farming - or at least farm work - would have been part of my life almost from day one, and finding my early amusement in the farmyard would almost inevitably have led to a life on the land. 

In my earliest memories, I sometimes didn't see my father from one weekend to the next: he had gone to work by the time I got up, and I would be in bed by the time he got home again - at least this would have been the case in the summer time.  

By far the greatest part of my early years was therefore spent in the company of my mother and her family.  The family home was within easy walking distance of ours; so, too was the town itself.  The things that filled my early experiences were linked to the shops and businesses in the town.  Mine was essentially an indoor childhood.  Little wonder, then, that my working life was office-based and in the general area of business, finance and commerce.

I've progressed gradually in adult life to an awareness of agriculture and the farming way of life through reading, through talking to my father man-to-man, and from the researches into my family history.  It's essentially head knowledge, though, not heart knowledge; it's not an emotional attachment.

'What has brought about this latest bout of introspection and self-analysis?', I hear you ask.  The answer is a combination of three things ... possibly four, if you include my move to south Yorkshire last summer. Last week, I decided to visit the outer parts of Barnsley, to see in daylight where I would be driving after dark for last night's election count.  On my way there, I passed what was clearly the winding gear (now preserved) of a former coal mine, and afterwards I did a little research to find out about it.

The second factor was loosely connected, to browse a couple of websites containing both written and pictorial material relating to the history of my new home town.  From the 1890s to the 1980s the town, its people and its economy were focussed almost completely on coal mining.  There were a number of collieries in the immediate area, and many of their employees lived in the town.  

When in 1907 it was decided to develop a mine that had last been active in the eighteenth century, the enlargement of the town itself, already well under way, accelerated to keep step.  Many new streets were laid out, mainly in the area between the town centre and the location of my home on the edge of the built-up area, and it seems likely that the whole area lived and breathed coal - almost literally!

Finally in my explanation, I came to the end of a book I've been reading over the last few weeks, How Green Was My Valley, Richard Llewellyn's tale of life in the mining valleys of south Wales.  Although a work of fiction, it presents a very believable picture of life in a mining community at the turn of the twentieth century, made more so for me as I walk around this town of mine.  The only things missing are the mountains and the growing slag heaps.  Since the closing of the mines in this area, these have been landscaped and the sites put to new uses.

One of those websites I was looking at carries a whole list of newspaper extracts, many of which are reports of the inquests following deaths in the mines.  As always, these gave full details of the deceased including their complete address.  The other day I walked around some of these streets and I could easily imagine fathers and sons emerging from the doors I was passing, making their way through the town to work, not knowing whether or not they would safely emerge into daylight again at the end of their shift.

This multi-faceted experience has brought to life the contrast between, on the one hand, growing up in a community such as this, when there would have been little alternative to following one's father down the pit, or like my father, with a similar inevitability about life on a farm and, on the other, the early life I had when there were so many options and opportunities that I just didn't know what to choose as I drew near to leaving school.

This flood of possibilities wasn't without its downside, though.  For one thing some choices just weren't possible, either for lack of academic qualification, or the absence of parental approval.  Having finally made my choice, I discovered after six months that it wasn't for me (although ten years later, I realised that it might well have been if I'd had a vision of what could have developed from that situation).  I left for another job, for which, with A-levels, I was over qualified.  One dead end led to another until eventually, while working in an office at a factory a few miles from home, it was suggested that I might like to take day-release towards gaining a professional qualification ... and the rest, as they say, is history!