I never went back to the Maypole Colliery because my Father did not care for working at this colliery because of gas and it was very hot. He could not get the men and materials to keep the place in order and he always said something will happen at the Maypole. Anyhow, he left and got another Undermanagers job in Skelmersdale at a colliery called Glenburn Colliery. It was originally known as Tawd Vale Colliery which was flooded by the River Tawd, which burst its banks and flooded the mine causing the deaths of two men who were never found. After a while this colliery was reopened and named as Glenburn. It had not been going very long when my Father took over his work there. He tried it out first by going into lodgings for about 3 months, finally he made his mind up to stay and looked around for a suitable house for us, in all Father and Mother and seven healthy lads. He finally was fixed up at Summer Street where two houses had been made into one. When my Mother went to look at it she was not overdelighted with it because she had over a mile and a half to do her shopping. Anyhow we started packing up at Abram for another move to Skelmersdale and this is how I and my younger brother came to Skelmersdale.

We were sent on well in front of the removal lorry and told to get 2 railway tickets for Skelmersdale on the L & T Station, Wallgate, Wigan, which we did and were told to get out at Rainford Junction and board a train for Skelmersdale. Everything went all right, we got off at Rainford and asked a Porter which was the Skem train, he said to us "Be sharp lads, you can see that little train snorting away up there, it is ready for Skem". We made a run for it and managed to get on. The conductor came to us and asked "where are you going lads?" We told him "Skem". We found out after why he had asked us, there were two little stations before Skelmersdale, one was Heyes Halt and the other White Moss Halt. At these stations when anyone wanted to get on or off the train the conductor had to haul his steps out for them. We arrived at Skelmersdale Station OK and when we got off we asked the Porter where Stormy Corner was, after taking our tickets he just simply said "Go down Clayton Street, then down School Lane and when you get to the school turn left and it will take you straight into Stormy Corner". After a few more enquiries we managed it.
We were told to ask for a Mr Kavanagh who had been told to look out for us. We eventually found him waiting for us, he looked us up and said "I'll bet you two lads are hungry, so come with me to our house and have a bit of dinner with us". It was a small stone house and had been once an Ale house called the Miners Rest and I think it was appropriate in our case as we were hungry and tired. Anyway, we sat down on two old forms with the rest of the family and devoured two full plates of Lob Scouse, a favourite dish in those days and a filler up. When we had finished he said to us, "come with me and I'll show you the way to the house where you are going to live because I can't go with you as I have to go to work this afternoon". He then took us to the top of Stormy Road and pointed down Summer Street, "carry on straight lads and you will come to a wooden bridge over the brook, carry on over this for about 200 yards and you will come to two rows of houses and the first house you come to is where you are going to live". We carried on as directed.
When we got there and saw how the house was situated we were quite thrilled with it; adjoining the house was a large field and a wood. We had a key for the house but we were not interested in the house, we were more interested in the field outside where rabbits and hares were scampering about and we, not being used to anything like this, went running after these rabbits thinking we could catch them but soon found out we were no match for them. We had quite a hectic evening and soon became tired.
We were ready for the removal lorry to come but it took quite a while for in those days it was all horses that moved the furniture lorries. The rest of the family came along with the furniture and by the time we had unloaded it was beginnin to go dark as it was early Autumn. We could not put everything ship-shape as the drivers of the lorries wanted to return home.

When I look back on the day we came to Skelmersdale it was a new phase in all of our lives. Skelmersdale at that time was practically owned by the Lathom Family who had the land supervised by gamekeepers, who in their turn used to have lobs or informers who used to notify them if they saw anyone who was poaching. Around where we lived there was plenty of game of all kinds. At first we did as other people around us were doing, but by working and living amongst them we soon got to know the runs of the district around us. Father always was strictly against us doing anything that would cause any trouble for him, as the collery where we all worked was on the Lathom Estate, but being a healthy lot of lads we could not resist the temptation of purloining a pheasant or rabbit now and again. I can safely say we have had many tasty meals from the land around us that strayed into our clutches. We were all beginning to like the place as time went on and enjoying the rambles around the countryside which we could say was nearly all virgin land untouched by anything, only nature and farmers.

We had been working and living in Skelmersdale about a year and a half when the Great Explosion occured at our old colliery, the Maypole. This was sad news to us as we had many friends in that disaster. I can always remember going to the scene of the explosion on my bicycle from where we lived and seeing everything, it was a complete shambles and Abram was completely shocked by the disaster. It was also a Godsend for our family as we might have been amongst them. Anyhow life must go on, and as time went on mining was the same in every colliery - dangerous, hard work and sweat went together to make a good combination. The miners life began like this: he was given a number which corresponded with his wages, lamp and identity. He would first go to the lamp room and shout his number and he would be given an oil lamp with this number and he would then take care of this lamp while in his possesion, otherwise if anything went wrong with the lamp he was severely dealt with. Lives depended a lot on these safety lamps. Next he would go to an Examiner or Deputy who would check that his lamp was safe, go to the Banksman who looked after the cages that lowered the men down the shaft, who would then put eight to ten men in every deck, sometimes a cage would have 2 or 3 decks which meant a compartment or division in the cage. When the Banksman had put the required number in the cage he would signal to the Engine Winder to lower the cage to the bottom of the shaft. The men would get out and then he searched for any matches that might be on them, this was another stringent rule that was always done. He would then hang his tally or disc with his number on the Tally board, this was carried on for the sake of the Deputy in charge who had his own district to look after. The Tally also served a dual purpose; it enabled the Deputy to book his time worked, also when the day was over the Deputy would look at the Tally Board to see if all his men had come out of the particular District he was in charge of, and anyone who forgot to take his Tally off the board when he went up the shaft was heavily censored and fined.

In my own way I have tried to explain what the Miner's life was like in my time. At the point previous to my explanation of the miner I was about 15 and a half years old and was taking a deep interest in my work, I had two good tutors, my Father and my eldest brother who I could safely say knew what mining really was. I started at the pit bottom and gradually worked on anything that was in the mine. My first six months at Glenburn Colliery was lashing on with a chain batches of empty trucks onto an endless rope and taking batches of loaded trucks off. This endless rope was called a 'self-act' which by using the loaded trucks would pull the empty trucks up to where they were required, this meant keeping a regular and equal number of loaded trucks to an equal number of empty trucks. It was cheap motive power as it only took one man to manage it and he could stop it or start it at a given signal by anyone who wanted to put loaded trucks on and take empty trucks off at different levels in the incline where seams of coal were being worked by the colliers at the coal face.

From this work I gradually went on to different kinds of work further in the mine until I finally got to the coal face. At that time colliers used the pick to get the coal. I have seen men on their sides hewing a shot of coal which means getting the coal from underneath the seam for about four feet deep and the full length of his place or stall. Generally there were two men and a waggoner to a stall which consisted of about 10 yards of coal and the height of coal could be anything from 2ft to 6ft high. When he had hewn his shot or cut his coal he would then drill holes in the coal with a hand drilling machine and then send for the shot fire man to blow them down, this is where the waggoner would start filling his trucks and taking them to a shunt near the main rope where another person would be waiting to lash them on the rope to get them down to the pit shaft and be sent up to the surface. This was a continuous move for 7 and a half hours with just a short break of 20 minutes. These men were usually paid on the amount of coal they sent up the shaft and each set of colliers had their own set of Tallies which the waggoner would fix on his truck before loading it. This was my work at that time, seeing to the smooth running and keeping the roads in repair.