Beneath Pastures Green

The Staffordshire coalfield area covers many coal mines. This story is about one area in particular.

Coal mining is a dangerous occupation and many lives have been lost in producing coal. Men who work below ground form a close comradeship and are there to help each other, but still, there are accidents and many men have lost their lives. Also above ground, incidents occur that affect the local community such as the drug pushers who infiltrated our town. This had to be dealt with. And so the B.A.D. Boys were formed: Boys Against Drugs.

Prostitution also raised its ugly head and one man decided to cash in on this. One must remember that money was scarce, especially during the strike. The government was determined to close the industry down and so the National Union of Miners decided to take action. This began with police brutality against the striking miners which caused turmoil throughout the coalfields. Violence was unavoidable.

However, after a long period of no money coming in the miners had to give way to the government and accepted defeat. The closure of many coal mines decimated the industry. We do not now have a coal industry. The talk of redundancies began and so the miners did, after much negotiation, receive some sort of compensation. However, it came after many miners had died from the dreaded dust disease.

Frank worked in the mining industry for many years until early retirement allowed him to think about what the future held for him and his wife. They decided after spending two weeks in Spain that it would be nice to live in the sunshine so they planned another holiday to Spain and started to look at properties for sale. They eventually found a place they liked and bought a newly built villa on an urbanization two miles from the sea on the Costa Blanca. It was more like a bungalow on an elevated site overlooking fields of grapes and views of the mountains. They spent twenty happy years there flitting back and forth to England. They had a good life and enjoyed the sunshine. Frank had written a children's book many years ago, but it hadn't amounted to anything. He tried one publisher who wasn't interested so he put it into the back of his wardrobe and forgot about it for many years. He started to write poems instead and has written thirty-one so far, but has not bothered to get them published. Frank's passion for writing started when he was at mining college. His English teacher said she could see him writing a book one day but he never thought he would until Frank and his wife moved to Spain and then his passion for writing fired up again. Frank believes the relaxed atmosphere helped and of course the sunshine. So far he has written five books, three of which have been published. The Adventures of Po-Po, Man of the Mountains, Captain Jack Master of Boughey Hall and his latest novel Beneath Pastures Green.