Comments

  1. Clare Dobb

    Wow Ann what an amazing woman then and now.
    You would have been at Clipstone when my dad was there – he was a face worker and then a deputy in the early 70s before he left in 1973.
    It is great to hear of women working at the pit as it so heavily portrayed as a male environment .

    • Ann Donlan

      Dear Clare, thank you for your kind comments. For me working for the NCB, was in many ways a rewarding experience. I was very young in my late teens and early twenties and so it was a formative time for me. I felt part of something enormous, and coal and the coal communities at that time felt valued in many ways and that was reflected in a strong community spirit. I felt proud of being part of a nationalised industry and playing my small part in that. I don’t want to idealise it, however. The Unions were needed and they played a very important role in holding management and the industry to account and in improving the appalling working conditions many mineworkers had to endure.