Sydney Page watched the little knot of men at the pit head as they handled the crumpled form of a badly injured miner. Sydney was 18 and worked aboveground at the Newstead Colliery in Nottinghamshire. The injured man was one of 200 seriously hurt each month in British mines, but he was the first casualty Sydney had seen.
When the works manager told Sydney he would have to work in the pits, the boy refused. Promptly he was sentenced to a month in prison; under the Essential Works Orders, no war worker may refuse the job to which he is assigned.
Older miners...
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