In the 1960s the Miner’s Welfare Committee, operating in the Midlands UK, organised for its workers an annual day-trip by rail, to Skegness, a popular UK seaside resort. What became known as “Pit Trips” actually started in 1932, but it was the 1950s / 60s which saw them thrive. Vast numbers of miners and their families would leave their villages looking like ghost towns as they boarded the trains for a day beside the seaside. This particular photograph comes from 1964, which I believe was the final “Pit Trip” from Welbeck Colliery Village to Skegness, before car ownership and coaches became more popular. It depicts my family.
My father had just taken a job In Welbeck Colliery Village (now known as Meden Vale), not as a miner but on a maintenance team for National Coal Board council houses. It was a long way from the green fields and countryside splendour of Thoresby Park, but such is life. I have no memory of what the weather was like that day, or whether or not sunglasses were entirely necessary. The black polo neck would certainly be because of what The Beatles wore at the time. Maybe that also accounts for the boots, although mine didn’t have Cuban heels. My high-forehead hair style precedes David McCallum in The Man from Uncle, by about one year. So I’d like to claim credit for that.
All text and photograph copyright ian gordon craig.
