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"Miners are a breed apart. They get that mining thing, and that is it – they are miners." Jim Ferguson comes from a long line of coal miners, and can appreciate the fact that it takes a special kind of person to choose a life working underground. Jim’s Story
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| “My dad, Jim Ferguson, lived to be ninety-five, and he was down in the mines as early as eleven years old; they had only just passed a Child Labour Law in Scotland. | |
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Dad worked in a shale mine in Scotland as my grandpa’s helper. He was so young that if he was working afternoon shift he had to come out of the mine at 9:00 pm, because he could not work until 12:00 am as his dad’s helper. They made a Labour Law that said he could not work after 9:00 pm. That is how young he was, and how old that law was. Now, they would never consider letting you work at the age of eleven. It is amazing that these people lived so long with such a tough life! A lot of them did live a long time. They got silicosis in hard rock mining; my dad worked in the Pioneer Mines for about four or five years, but he was okay. |
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