Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #census1921
Most recents (1)
Our grandfather John was a coalminer who left school at the age of 13 and went down the mine at Kiveton Park and Wales, on the outskirts of Sheffield. He was bright but didn't have the opportunity to stay in education because of his deprived circumstances.
(his father left when he was young and for a short period he and his mother lived in the workhouse before his grandparents took them in). Through the pit he was able to attend night and Saturday classes at the University of Sheffield and got qualifications in mining engineering.
He worked all his life down the pit, following work to Llay in North Wales after the Great Strike of 1926, suffering times of hardship and unemployment after pit accidents with spinal fractures, and returning to the Yorkshire coalfields till he retired aged 63/64.
