MAN WITH RUINED NERVES

Evening Star, Issue 21640, 8 February 1934, Page 14

MAN WITH RUINED NERVES

ECHO OF GREAT MINE TRAGEDY / REFUSAL TO WORK NEAR MINE. There is a man who is prepared to sacrifice everything rather than , work near-a coal mine. He is Harold Roberts, of Bentley, Yorkshire, the only coal-face survivor of the Bentley pit explosion in 1931. Mr Roberts persists in bis, refusal, though his compensation has just been reduced by 13s a week in the Doncaster County Court because he will not take light work in .the lamp room at the colliery where the disaster occurred. . The man says that memories of the explosion still haunt him two years afterwards. He was the only survivor of fortysix men working at the face when an explosion occurred. His forearm was fractured, and, working naked to the waist, he was terribly burned, and Ins life wass despaired of for four weeks. Mr Roberts said recently: My nerves were ruined. Even to-day X still feel that the roof of my house is going to fall in on me at any moment. I am constantly haunted by the deafening roar and flames of that scene underground. I have fought against it, but without success. I refuse to work near a colliery again.’’ The compensation' paid to Mr Roberts has been reduced from 29s Id to 16s Id a week. He is breeding poultry, and hoping to make a living in that way. There was a conflict of medical evidence at Doncaster County Court in the question whether a light job in the lamp room of the Bentlev pit was suitable work for him. Mr Roberts has a wife and three children. -