I know these “only a xxx’s daughter” jokes are in very bad taste and certainly the two versions of the above that a quick google found are both just that. Setting that aside, I’m increasingly interested in my immediate family’s past. I suppose it’s come from living in an ex-mining community and being reminded that my own recent past was involved in mining too. It feels a bit “full circle” although the mining here could not have been more different in many ways. If my Dad’s time down the pit was harsh, then my Mum’s Dad’s time there was worse and his Dad before him was even worse again…and none of them would have experienced anything like what a miner in the tin and copper mines round here would have had.

My Dad was trapped underground in a pit accident and this was the catalyst for him leaving the coal mine because my Mum’s Dad had been killed in a similar accident some years earlier. My Mum told my Dad that she couldn’t bear to have the worry of not knowing if he’d come home each day. I don’t think my Dad needed much persuading.

This lamp has featured on these pages before in a very different pic. Mum and Dad bought it for me as a reminder of where I’d come from. It sits on our mantelpiece doing just that. I’ve asked my Dad for a copy of a photo of him coming out of the lift when he finished a shift and was completely black from coal. I remember the photo from years ago and would really love to have a copy to put on the wall. What's interesting is that he devoted his life to escaping from the cruel reality of coal mining. He was determined to ensure that his own family never had to do a job like that for a living. Yet there is a great sense of pride that that's where he came from and of course that's also where my Mum came from. I'm not sure how many generations of coalminers there were in my Grandad's family but it was certainly several. He brought me a painting of Snowdown Colliery when he came to see me last time he was here.

Strangely, DM came home from work the other day with a new one on me. Apparently I am a scaley brat. Now this is not an expression I’ve ever come across before but it doesn’t relate to being a coalminer’s daughter, it relates to being an airman’s daughter. Apparently married airmen were paid more than their single counterparts and this was known as being on the scale (scaley) and as the child of a scaley, that makes me a scaley brat. Phew. When he came home and reported this to me, I googled it and found out that yes, this is an expression applied to people like me.