HAZARDS OF THE MINER’S CALLING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 19 September 1936, Page 4

HAZARDS OF THE MINER’S CALLING

TRAGIC OCCASIONS (By Air Mail—From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, 13th August. Periodically some colliery disaster occurs to emphasise the hazards of the miner’s calling, but the Barnsley explosion is in a far more serious category than most. On these tragic occasions, the dread of which haunts so many simple homes in the mining villages, there is never any lack of rescue endeavour by heroic volunteers and we may be sure nothing was left undone that human effort could-do in this respect. Sir William Sutherland, the former Civil Servant, who was Mr Lloyd George’s right-hand man in preparing the Old Age Pensions and Insurance Acts,, and afterwards became a member of Parliament, is a director of the pit now concerned, his association with which came by his marriage with Miss Annie Fountain. He and others in responsible positions were early on the scene of the disaster, where the usual sad groups of women assembled to wait some news of their men’s fate. These tragic happenings make public opinion sympathetic to the miners’ claims for adequate recompense for their arduous and risky labour.