Well done, the narration was excellent. Amazing how the people worked in poor conditions ... I could well imagine the frightful things the miners had to experience. I really enjoyed the read. Thanks for sharing.

Loved it, Tony, have read it twice now as is so enjoyable to loose oneself in...

you caught all aspects of time and conditions (and title) within this well told tale,

thanks for an excellent bedtime read, Zy

Maria thank you for reading and commenting
Being down a mine is one place I would never have liked to work even though todays conditions are much better.
You wouldn't get me down there for a kings ransome, I take my hat off to those who have braved it all...Tony (potleek)

Zy coal mines and shipyards were the major employments on the River Tyne, I know more about shipyards than I do coal mines.
But the stories floated about for me to understand the conditions a little, in the earlier days the bosses were hard and mean and the work was even harder.
I thank you for your kind words, I got the title from an actual tale about a mine, that's how they brought the dead and injured home.
It was through the unions that got the conditions improved, we would be back in the dark ages if it weren't for unions...Tony (potleek)

Funny, Tony, different places ect ...but if it hadn't been for the unions delaying tactics with strikes,

the Clydeside shipping yards may have survived. John Browns, Harland & Wolffs and in particular

in Glasgow. (Goven); But overseas ship building had become more economicel  and slid in to nail the coffin, Zy

Zy I can agree to a point that sometimes industrial unions were a bit over the top, but I've had this debate many times before.
If it hadn't been for the unions conditions in ALL places of work would have been Victorian, bosses would lay down the conditions without any hope of ever changing them, wages would have been kept to the minimum, no sick pay, no this no anything for the workers, everything for the bosses, it even took several working life times to get down to a 40 hour week and yet it's still not there for everyone.
Even now the basic working wage is a ploy to get wages lowered, short term or zero hourcontracts all favour the bosses.The hands of the unions are now tied with legislation and laws, thank Mrs. Thatcher for all that.
Sorry to be on my soap box, but without unions we would all be worse off...Tony (potleek)

As with everything, Tony, there are the plusses and the minuses, it's true, the unions did much to improve the long before dreadful working conditions but as with most things, power undid  the good by them rendering shipyards paralized by penalty payments and broken contract dates through repetative strike action.
Perhaps those generations/families of men of the 70s would have prefered to have their jobs rather than 1,000s all out of work as a result of the unions demanding more and more. (at that point and beyond)

It wasn't difficult for overseas shipbuilders to win UK contracts without industrial/union interference waiting in the wings, Zy