At the Coal Face Read online

  Copyright

  HarperElement

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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  London SE1 9GF

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  First published by HarperElement 2015

  FIRST EDITION

  © Joan Hart and Veronica Clark 2015

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

  Cover photographs © Photograph of author supplied by author (Nurse); Selwyn Tait/Sygma/Corbis (background)

  Joan Hart and Veronika Clark assert the moral right

  to be identified as the authors of this work

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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  Source ISBN: 9780007596164

  Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780007596171

  Version: 2015-06-22

  Dedication

  For my husband, Peter

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1. The Year of the Floods

  2. Nurse in Training

  3. Mishaps on the Wards

  4. Going Home

  5. A Miner’s Nurse

  6. Cuddles and Infertility

  7. Babies and Bicycles

  8. A Heartbeat from Death

  9. At the Coalface

  10. Nurse in Pit Boots

  11. Practical Jokers and Perfume

  12. Birthday down the Pit

  13. Medical Emergencies and Marriage Guidance

  14. Chewing Tobacco and Cursing in Casualty

  15. The Mines Rescue Service

  16. Bentley Pit Disaster

  17. Rubber Gloves

  18. The Miners’ Strike

  19. Bird Woman

  20. Noel

  21. Target

  22. End of the Strike

  23. Loss

  24. Eternal Nurse

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary of Mining Terms

  Exclusive sample chapter

  If you like this, you’ll love …

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  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Dropping the telephone receiver back down into its cradle, I jumped to my feet and closed the door. My pale blue overall was still grubby with coal dust from my pit inspection the day before. I was a nurse on call, in charge of thousands of miners, and right now one of them needed me. I clamped the palm of my hand against my hard hat and ran along the pathway towards the lamp cabin. With my metal checks jangling inside my pocket, I grabbed my lamp, battery pack and self-rescuer canister, and clipped them onto the side of my belt. It was still early and grey clouds swirled overhead. The air was thick with industrial noise and the threat of immediate rain. My pit boots picked up pace as I dashed from the lamp cabin towards the shaft side where the doctor was already waiting. The noise from the winding house groaned and creaked as the giant drum turned and toiled inside. The fans spat out air thick with coal dust as an avalanche of noise hissed above our heads like a steam train.

  ‘Hello, Sister,’ Dr Macdonald called.

  ‘Hello, Doctor. I’ve brought the amputation kit,’ I shouted above the din as I held the bag aloft to show him.

  ‘Good. Are you all right?’

  I nodded, although my heart was pounding with fear and adrenalin. My fingers trembled and the palm of my right hand was sweating as I clutched the handle of the surgical kit. It contained artery forceps, a tourniquet, sterile saw and knives of varying lengths. The thought of it alone made me sick with nerves, and I prayed that we wouldn’t have to use it.

  We approached the banksman, who checked we were ready to go.

  ‘No flammables? No battery-operated devices?’ he asked as a matter of course.

  Dr Macdonald and I shook our heads. We knew the safety drill. He opened up the cage and loaded us into it. We switched off our headlamps as he pulled down the chain-mail shutters, enveloping us in virtual darkness. I felt reassured by the blackness because I didn’t want Dr Macdonald to see the fear in my eyes. The cage rattled into life as we began our descent, hundreds of feet to the pit bottom below. Clouds of white steam billowed up around the edges, making it feel like a journey into the depths of hell.

  ‘What information do we have, Sister?’ Dr Macdonald asked.

  I tried to remember what I’d just been told.

  ‘It’s a man, in his early twenties. He’d been riding on the conveyor belt at the end of his shift, but he didn’t manage to jump off in time. His leg got mangled in the machinery.’

  ‘Oh,’ replied Dr Macdonald, his voice cutting through the darkness.

  ‘It’s an amputation,’ I continued, ‘though I still don’t know if it’s partial or complete. The deputy and first aiders are with him now.’

  Moments later, the cage shuddered and chains rattled as we came to a halt – we’d reached the pit bottom.

  ‘Ready, Sister?’ Dr Macdonald asked. He switched his headlamp back on and my face was illuminated in a circle of golden light.

  I reached out a hand and switched on my lamp too. The white circle of light waltzed around on the pit wall opposite.

  ‘Ready,’ I replied as we stepped out of the cage.

  Suddenly a face loomed into view. It was the onsetter.

  ‘The paddy train is waiting to take you inbye to district.’

  I took a deep breath and climbed on board. As the train trundled off into the darkness I wondered what would be waiting to greet us at our destination.

  1

  The Year of the Floods

  The boat was unsteady as it floated along the street. Inside the house my mother was huffing and panting as her contractions quickened with every minute.

  ‘Where’s the bloody midwife?’ she screamed – her cries so loud that the neighbours heard every word.

  Moments later, a small rowing boat bobbed outside.

  ‘Hang on, I’ll fetch the ladder,’ my father called down from a bedroom window at the top of the house.

  The midwife clambered out of the boat and placed an uncertain foot onto the ladder. The rungs felt slippy and unsure beneath her feet as her eyes darted nervously to the filthy brown water swirling below.

  ‘I’ll grab your hand when you reach the top,’ Dad promised. He didn’t care what it took to get her in; he just wanted her to hurry up.

  A large bag dangled precariously from her arm as she climbed upwards, one rung at a time. My father was waiting to greet her. With one arm around her shoulder and the other to steady her, he helped the midwife climb in through the open bedroom window.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ he gasped, smoothing a hand through his hair. His face was fraught with worry as his eyes signalled over towards the bed where my mother lay.

  ‘I think the baby’s on its way.’

  The midwife nodded dutifully, took off her overcoat and rolled up her sleeves. I’d caused them all quite a lot of fuss, apparently, but less than an hour later I emerged naked and blinking against the harsh light of the world.

  ‘It’s a girl!’ the midwife announced, wrapping me in a cle
an sheet. ‘Congratulations.’

  My dad later told me how he’d sighed with relief while my auntie Lucy had cleaned up. Meanwhile, Mum had sobbed quietly in the bed, glad it was over. I’d entered the world on 18 May 1932 and, true to form, I’d done it in quite a style. I was born in Bentley, a little pit village situated on the outskirts of Doncaster, South Yorkshire. The village was also near the River Don, which had a habit of flooding every time we suffered a heavy bout of rain, and May 1932 had been no exception. Rain it did, until floodwater had engulfed the entire village, including the residents and their terraced houses. The flooding was so severe that a boat service had to be brought in to transport the good people of Bentley in and out of the village, including the poor midwife.

  Dad had been travelling to his job at Bentley Colliery in the same boat, day in, day out, for over a week. My father was a miner, but as soon as he discovered Mum was pregnant with me he took his deputy papers so he could become an overman, to bring in a better wage. Soon he’d passed his exams and moved to Brodsworth pit, where he was in charge of over 1,000 miners working the afternoon shift. Back then, Brodsworth was the biggest pit in Doncaster, employing thousands of men.

  Standing at 6 feet 2 inches tall, my father was a gentle giant, but his solid stature gave him an air of authority and the men knew better than to mess with him. He had thick mousy-brown hair and he was incredibly handsome. My mother, on the other hand, was small and attractive, with natural red hair, which I’d inherited. She also saw herself as quite the little lady. But with a fractious baby and a house that constantly flooded, Mum was at her wits’ end and threatened to drown me in the River Don just to shut me up, so Dad found us another house in a village called Woodlands. With a father in a good job and a stay-at-home mum, in many ways my life was idyllic. I was followed by a brother, Tony, just seven years later. Tony was a real screamer. One day, Mum, who was frazzled through lack of sleep, accidentally dropped his baby bottle. Back then, bottles were banana shaped with big ugly rubber teats at each end. They were also made of glass, so Tony’s bottle smashed to smithereens as soon as it hit the floor.

  ‘No!’ she cried as she looked at the scattered pieces of glass.

  Exasperated, she opened up her purse, handed me some pennies and told me to go straight to the chemist to buy another so she could feed the baby. The only problem was that, although it was April, it was bitterly cold and it’d been snowing heavily all week. The 10-minute walk to the village shop took me almost half an hour as I battled knee-deep through the snow, both there and back. Tony was a typical boy, and as long as he got fed he was happy. Our sister Ann was born three years later, so, as the eldest, I constantly ran errands for Mum. Every couple of days I’d be given enough money to buy a block of fresh yeast from the local baker. I loved the smell of the bakery, but more than that, I loved the taste of fresh yeast. The yeast looked pretty unappetising in a grey square lump, but curiosity made me crumble the edge of a corner off it one day. As soon as I put it inside my mouth it started to foam and I was hooked.

  ‘Mmmm, lovely,’ I sighed, breaking off another piece and hoping my mother wouldn’t notice.

  All my friends preferred sweets but I loved to nibble yeast. After a while, though, the crumbled block raised suspicion. Mum twigged what I was doing and forbade me to eat it ever again.

  ‘It’ll upset your stomach!’ she snapped, but I didn’t care.

  As we grew, Mother settled into her role as the lady of the house. Dad doted on her and bought her everything her heart desired, and back then it desired a washing machine. In fact, it was such a coveted piece of machinery that we were the first family in Woodlands to have one. It was pretty basic by today’s standards – a metal tub with a lid and a handle on top, which you moved backwards and forwards to create the ‘wash’. But in Woodlands it was the height of sophistication, so much so that all our neighbours and their children crowded round our kitchen just to see it in action. Mum duly obliged, blinding them all with the marvels of modern science.

  ‘Oh, you’re so lucky, Ellen; I wish my husband would buy me one of them,’ a neighbour cooed.

  As she twisted the washing-machine handle back and forth we heard a swishing sound from within the tub and my friends were mesmerised.

  ‘Oooh, can you hear that?’ one cried. ‘It sounds just like the waves of the sea!’

  Mum lifted her head regally and smiled. She knew women in the village envied her with her handsome husband, three children and a brand new washing machine. However, unbeknownst to us, she had a secret – a yearning to return to her old life. Before she’d met Dad she’d worked as a barmaid at a pub on Fleet Street, London. The bar was always a bustling hive of activity, with journalists all hungry for the next big scoop. Mum loved everything about it – the buzz, the excitement and the fast pace of life. So, when she found herself stuck with three kids in the outskirts of a town in South Yorkshire, she wondered what might have been if she’d not married a miner. My parents had met quite by chance. Originally from Stafford, Mum had been in Doncaster visiting her brother when she landed a temporary job as a cashier on the reception of the local swimming baths. My father, Harry Smith, soon caught her eye. A few dates were followed by an engagement and ultimately marriage, but Mum soon felt trapped. Shortly after Ann was born, a group of her friends travelled up to Yorkshire to visit. I remember watching her eyes mist over as they spoke of London and past acquaintances.

  ‘You’ll have to come back and visit, Ellen. Everyone misses you. They all ask after you.’

  ‘Really?’ Mum gasped, her eyes lighting up. Little did we know then that she was already in the tunnel clawing her way towards a new life – one without us.

  Weeks later, I’d wandered downstairs in my nightgown. My eyes were still blurry from sleep but I’d heard a noise and I’d gone to investigate. As I padded barefoot down the stairs I could hardly believe the sight that greeted me. It was my father. He was bent over double, sat in a chair in the front room, sobbing his heart out. It was a shock because my father was a strong man and I’d never seen him cry before. I knew something dreadful had happened. I automatically ran over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck, but it was no good; there was nothing I could say or do to make it better.

  ‘She’s gone, Joan,’ he blurted out in between deep sobs. I pulled away from him with a puzzled look on my face.

  Who’s gone? What on earth was he talking about?

  ‘It’s your mother. She’s gone and left me. She’s left us all. She’s packed up her things and gone back to London.’

  I shook my head in disbelief. Surely he’d got it wrong? There had to be some kind of mistake. Mum wouldn’t just pack a bag and leave us behind without a word. Ann was still a baby and a mother wouldn’t leave her baby!

  ‘Maybe she’ll come home?’ I whispered hopefully.

  Dad shook his head. ‘No, it’s over, Joan. She’s gone and she’s never coming back.’

  That night I blinked back the tears and wondered how Mum could be so heartless to just abandon us. She hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye. But I was the eldest and I knew I could help my father out with the little ones, so that’s what I decided I would do. Dad needed me to be strong, so I would be. I’d take as long as necessary off school so he could keep his job, go to work and bring in a wage to feed and clothe us all. I was 13 years old, going on 14. A few months earlier I’d joined the St John Ambulance Brigade as a young cadet, so I knew a little bit about first aid.

  Besides, how hard could cooking actually be? I pondered.

  But cooking was a lot harder than I thought and, after cremating several family meals, a kindly neighbour called Lizzie Adams took me under her wing. By then, I’d decided I would take care of everything. Just because our mother had failed us, it didn’t mean I would. Lizzie was a wily woman in her sixties, but to a girl my age she seemed absolutely ancient. However, what she didn’t know about cooking wasn’t worth knowing, and I became her willing pupil. Cooking, cleaning and looking
after four people was no mean feat, and soon I’d missed days, weeks, even months, of school. But I was smart, and I knew I’d just have to work twice as hard to catch up. In the meantime, Lizzie and I spent hours in the kitchen where she taught me how to bake bread and boil vegetables so that they didn’t disintegrate as soon as I drained the pan. She also showed me how to cook a tasty roast all the way through, checking the juices ran clear, so that I didn’t poison anyone. Of course, my father was delighted to come home to a piping hot meal and three happy, clean children, but he also felt guilty because he hated the idea of me missing school.

  ‘We can’t carry on like this, Joan,’ he said, placing his knife and fork down firmly on the table. ‘You need to go back to school so you can learn and do well in life. You can’t stay here looking after us all; I won’t allow it. Not any more.’

  Dad was right, of course, but the thing was, after a year of playing housemaid, I quite liked the idea of caring for others. I’d enjoyed making sure the little ones got to school on time with a bellyful of food and clean faces and hands. I’d hated the housework, but the satisfaction I felt when everything was neat, proper and in its place made it all worthwhile. In short, I knew it was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

  ‘I want to be a nurse,’ I told the St John cadet leader, a lovely woman called Mrs Hargreaves, later that evening. ‘How do I go about it?’

  She explained that at 14 years old I was much too young to be anything other than a child but, when the time was right, she’d make enquiries on my behalf.

  In the meantime I tried to be the best cadet I could, and thankfully I discovered I had a natural talent for first aid.

  With me back at school, Dad employed a husband-and-wife team – Harry and Emily – as live-in housekeepers. But the house was already too small and cramped, so Dad and Tony were forced to share a room. We were told we should call them Auntie Emily and Uncle Harry, even though we weren’t related. Harry was an invalid. He suffered from pneumoconiosis, a restrictive lung disease commonly seen in miners, so the prospect of a regular wage and a roof over their heads appealed to Emily, who made it clear from the beginning that she had ‘designs’ on my father. Our ‘aunt and uncle’ soon made themselves at home, to the point where, as children, we were barely allowed to sit down in case we made the place look untidy. In some ways it was nice to live in a spotlessly clean house and be back at school, but I hated being told off for putting my feet up on the sofa. Emily wasn’t only house-proud, she could also be very cruel. One day, she was cross because I’d moved something and put it back in the wrong place. Dad was out at work so she knew she could speak her mind.