Let me start with a very well known Einstein quote:
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. [end of quote]
I have several times thought what a puny pen pushing pisspot I have been compared to the Ushaw Moor miners. There I was making fanciful rulings about National Insurance law and this and that; it was all very laudable but not a patch on the body destroying requirement to earn bread for a family, by means of blood, sweat and risk; without electric light, television, washing machine, enlightened employer [usually], education.......
Those miners were noble in their labours and considerate in their dealings with fellow men, women and children. It is true that they tended to be sentimental, especially after a pint or two, but they were able to express their love and tenderness, not in fanciful words and sentences, but rather in what they did with their energy, and their undoubted courage, day in and day out.
Do not laugh about miners in my earshot, unless you want to display one of the the most profound examples of ignorance.
Do not compare miners unfavourably with the armed forces during wartime. Every day was a gamble at the pit; not for four years or six years but every year of their working lives.
So the village has the Roundy but also a lot more. It has the proud history of men, of several generations, that gave and gave and at times laughed and cried.
WB
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