LAST WOMAN MINER

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 236, 18 September 1936, Page 5

LAST WOMAN MINER

Early Days Recalled

The days when women worked below ground in the mines of Lancashire were recalled by Mrs Elizabeth Melling, of Sandy-lane, Orreil, near Wigan, who has just celebrated her eighthy-eighth birthday, says the ‘ ‘ Lancaster Observer and Morecambe Chronicle.” She is probably the only woman alive to-day who has worked underground.

“1 was only twelve years of age,.” she stated, “when I went to work at the old Barsley Collieries, at Holland Moor, Upholland. I went to work for my Uncle George, who was a contractor at the pit. Another girl and I acted as drawers to him but there were times when I sot to with a pick and got the coal myself. It was a good mine. The pit had no cage as we know it to-day. They used to lower us down the shaft in a big basket, which worked on a pulley. It was frightening at first, but I got used to it. There were no tubs then. We girls used to fill the coal into baskets and take it to the shaft bottom.

‘‘We started at 7 a.m. and worked until noon. Then wo came to the surface, and went back at one o’clock. We worked till four and then finished. I never worked on the night shift. There were three other women working down the pit at the time. We earned about 1/6 a day. I worked below ground for over twelve months. Then 1 was given a job on the surface.” Before working in the pit Mrs Melling. was a bobbin carrier in a Wigan mill. She earned lOd a week, and had to walk nearly five miles to and from work daily. When she was 42 her husband was killed in the pit, and left her with nine children to bring up. Mrs Melling, who is still active, enjoys a pipe of thin twist. ‘‘l have smoked thin twist for over forty years,” she said