Beneath This Green and Pleasant Land: A Miner's Life - Softcover

One of John Graham's proudest moments came when he handed his first pay packet from Prestwick colliery to his mother in 1953. He was just 15 years old. That pride in hard and honest work followed John right through a mining career that took him from Prestwick, Northumberland, to the vast undersea colliery at Westoe. John encountered many dangers in his 34 years underground including roof falls, methane gas explosions and flooding. He also had to live with the fear of redundancy as pits were closed. Humour, friendships, and a general impatience with officialdom saw him through it all. And if you've ever wondered just how all that coal reached the surface, John explains the mechanics of the coalface and its machinery, from hewing and putting to the massive technology of the super pit.

John William Graham was born at Prestwick, Northumberland in 1938. His career in mining included Prestwick Colliery, Havannah Pit, and Westoe Colliery. He retired in 1987 and runs a successful family news agency from his home village of Corbridge in Northumberland.