Andy Evans

About Andy Evans

I was born into a tradition which had spanned countless generations of my family before me.

Coal was king in my hometown of Featherstone, West Yorkshire and from an early age I revelled in the pride and knowledge of what I was to become.

The towns colliery dominated the landscape and it was rumoured Featherstone boasted one of the largest spoil heaps in Europe. Perhaps today we would consider this to be a handed down curse, surrounded by dust, living in the shadow of a sprawling landscape of colliery waste and debris. To me however this was the very fabric and backbone of my early years.

School years, to me, were simply a time of waiting. A stop gap before I was old enough to descend into the darkest depths of Mother Nature. Finally, at the age of sixteen the day of calling came and I began work at Sharlston Colliery near Wakefield.

Today, now all but a handful of the pits remain it is difficult to explain to those never experiencing a miner’s life just what it meant to carry the torch of family tradition and self worth the miner once held.

Coal ran through my veins and I revelled in the darkness and dust of the working environment. Sharlston was steeped in history and for me each day felt as if I was in the presence of departed souls who remained within the darkest corners to offer encouragement and support to the living who continued to win out the coals to feed a hungry nation of its energy.

Unfortunately the government of the day saw the miners differently. Still bruised from the might of the union just ten years previous when a strike had removed them from power they now sought revenge at all cost.

Forced to down tools once again against ridiculous job cuts I eagerly joined thousands on the picket lines. The fight was never about money or power; we were standing to protect our jobs, our children’s jobs and the jobs of those long after we had gone.

After twelve long months the fight was gone and I returned to work with head held high knowing I had not betrayed my people or my class.

Thankfully Sharlston Colliery was saved from the initial butchery of the coal mining industry which followed immediately after the miner’s strike ended in March 1985.

King coal had lost the throne and hundreds of mining communities plunged into decay as pits were closed in rapid succession. Once proud towns and villagers fell derelict, the workforce which drove the local economies now largely reliant on state handouts.

The hammer finally fell on Sharlston in March 1993. Despite maintaining an annual profit one hundred and thirty years of productivity ceased and the bulldozers moved in.

The following four years saw me working for several privately owned mining companies in the Selby coalfield. 
 

Unfortunately the ‘jewel in the crown’ suffered under the newly privatised coal industry and finally, when the vultures had stripped the carcass clean of easy profit the Selby coalfield also fell silent, just thirty five years after its birth of promise and prosperity.

I now sit behind a desk, employed within the criminal justice system. My daily burden is now the pen, not the heavy steel girder of support against Mother Nature's attempts of claiming back what we took from her.  Days of toil and working class pride are behind me but those days will never be forgotten.
Will those days of laughter amidst the fear return? I  forever hope so but with each day passing the dream becomes just that little bit more out of reach. The miner has gone all but from the memory of those who sadly now diminish in number.
Lest we forget our greatest days.