Royston, The Wells, Station Road c.1955

Photo ref: R248005

My introduction to the Monckton mining community began on a bitter cold March Monday morning in 1944. The wartime Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin had decreed that I should become one of his boys. So here I was at 5.30am on a Monday morning at the pithead baths arrayed in my work clothes and new boots with their shiney steel toecaps climbing the wooden steps to No One pit top. The activity there ...see more

If you look at the photograph of The Wells, on the crossroad that leads up the hill to Midland Road, the first shop on the corner used to be Barclays Bank but before then it was a tobacco shop and sweet shop combined. In the 1920s it was considered an offence for young lads and lasses to stay on the street and even if they were not causing bother if they hung around in groups it was more than likely that ...see more