I was a shaftsman at Hafod Colliery, Rhos, during the dismantling of the pit more than 40 years ago. One of the things that stands out in my mind is the period in the 1930s when Hafod was doing really badly, and before Llay Main had taken over the pit.  There was such a lot of men out of work that they gave permission for those men to pick the coal off the dirt bank.

 

Everybody - not just those who had worked in the colliery. They had to wait until the day shift had finished winding at half past one, before they were allowed on that bank to pick coal, which caused a lot of commotion - people wanting to be first on the scene. They were there with their prams, bikes, boxes on wheels, all sorts of conveyors carted back up to the Rhos. That really sticks in my mind. My dad had to keep these people in check, before allowing these people onto the bank for safety reasons. You'd get one or two hot heads who wanted to defy him, but he'd been a sergeant in the Welsh Guards, so I think he had control over the position really!

 

There was no such thing as benefits. If they weren't on the dole, they got nothing at all. They were glad of the few coppers they made out of the coal, and to use it for themselves. Back in the late 1920s, when the General Strike was on and there were no pits working at all in the area, my uncle had a little pit on the Ponciau Banks - right by the corner of Ponciau School. I'd have a ride up in the barrow, and have a barrow full of coal to bring back to our house. And that was covered in people digging for coal.

 

Oh, what a bad time that was. I started to work for Henry Dyke Dennis, being as we were his tenants. I didn't like it there at all, working there in the garden. You had the simplest jobs - brushing up, but with no such thing as a brush. We had to use a besom - which was homemade - made out of branches of a tree. I was 14 when I started that job. I had to leave school early to get the job. It was 10 shillings a week. This was in the garden of New Hall, Ruabon. I was the garden boy. Just weeding and brushing up.

 

My father remarried and they were turned out of the house in the Hafod, because they were going to bury it as part of the dirt bank for the colliery. So they had a house on the Bangor Road. That meant I'd have to live with my stepmother and her daughter and her brother. I didn't like that, so I applied for a job in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, so I went down there to work as a kennel boy. But we were starved to death there. So one night I made a bunk and came back home! Then, from there I went to the Hafod Colliery. I was in the coal industry for about 50 years, from the age of 15 until I retired at 65