I received a book off my uncle Emlyn who was a fitter down the Hafod Colliery. He was dismantling a cabin down in the pit and he found this book wedged between the cabin and the rockface. I suppose you could call this a discipline book for young lads.    

 

“Wilfred Jones whose pony's name was Derby; James Jones, Brownie; Emlyn Thomas, Bess; Brynley Green, Diamond. James Walker reported the lads for riding their ponies. They played one day.” That meant that they weren't allowed to go to work the next day and they played I suppose. 

“November 7, 1919, William Green, reported using bad language to Peter Williams Phillips, the fireman, on the night shift also for having picked up a stone to hit the fireman whilst in the mine.”

 

“November 16 1920, Robert John Edwards, Roger's lad, caught sleeping”.

My grandfather was a coal merchant. One of the worst jobs he had was when there had been an accident or a death at the pit. One of the men used to come from the pit on a bike and he would inform the police. The police would go to the house of the man who had been killed.

 

The man on the bike would then go to find my grandfather, wherever he was working. He would have to drop everything and go with his horse and cart down to the Hafod or Bersham collieries and the body would be put on the back of a coal cart, still as it was, covered in a sack and brought to the surface and my grandfather would have to take the body to wherever the man lived.