More Than Bread

Jack Lawley was born into a mining family in the North East of England during the dying years of the 19th century. He was a member of a small community that clustered around the pit head, the available employment, housing and wages attracting labour from all parts of the British Isles. In the early part of the 20th Century, invention and engineering drove the mines deeper and the tunnels further in pursuit of the ever more efficient extraction of coal, the ’black gold’ that fed an insatiably hungry market. For the miners and their families, although life could be comparatively good, the working conditions underground were always difficult, dark and dangerous and forged an inter reliance between miners; each needing to know that they could rely on their ’mates’ if they were in trouble. Railways allowed greater connectivity and opportunity to travel. The pub, football, allotments, pigeons and the Durham Gala all brought colour to their lives.Meanwhile, in the surrounding countryside, farming families husbanded the soil as they had done for generations and intended to do for generations to come.This book follows Jack through his formative years, the people he met, the triumphs and the tragedies, and shows, above all, the human side of those distant days.