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Monday, May 15, 2006

Walter the Miner


Watching all the coverage of the Beaconsfield miners, reminded me that mining is a very tough way to earn a living. My grandfather, Walter Lumsden was a coal miner in the Frances Colliery in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Born in 1914, he first went down the pit when he was 13, in the days when you mined coal with a bar and a hammer and a canary came along to monitor for gas. Miserable working conditions. When he came home, he would have a bath in the living room, to get most of the dust off and the wounds healed a little. He was lucky and didn’t get too badly injured and managed to get out of the mine before neumoconiosis took over. He got out when he was in his early 40s and became a gardener for the mine manager, allowing his lungs to recover. He lived until he was 88. Most of his contemporaries died much earlier. He wouldn’t let his son go down the mine, despite the lure of greater money. He lived in the same house for 40 years, never learned to drive, invented a now established breed of canary, the Fife Fancy, in 1951, and became a champion breeder and well respected international judge. He was a tireless fundraiser for charity, along with my Grandmother and was runner up in the Scottish Old Age Pensioner of the Year one year. Anyway, he crammed a lot of living in his years.

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