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ASKERN TRAINING PIT

On arrival at Askern I was directed to the Miners Welfare Section Gymnasium where I found many “Bevin Boys” sitting on the floor, on inquiring what was going on I was told to sit down, “We are on Strike” I said “how can we be on strike we are conscripted” they told me “They want to pay us 44 shillings a week and our boarding costs are 35 shillings so what are you doing about it “? I said “I’M on strike with you, after negotiations we were awarded £3-10 shillings and commenced our training.
After a failed training attempt by Local Lads employed directly from school we were assigned to a wonderful training officer by the name of Albert Chambers, he was an “Overman” he was on loan from Bentley Colliery which was to be my destination after our training period of one month . Albert was in many ways like a second Father to us all and after our condensed one month’s training schedule had managed to instil a lot of very valuable information on the safe way to work in a potentially dangerous environment as he was saying cheerio to us all I managed to tell him I would no doubt see him again when working at Bentley Colliery, little did I know that by the time I was to start work at Bentley he would be dead, (decapitated by an overstressed steel roof support breaking just at the precise moment of his passing) to the lads it was like the loss of close relative, a terrible welcome to our new Colliery. Thankfully I did not have cause to travel on the drift where poor Albert died during my 3 Years plus at Bentley, it was upsetting enough that we were working in the same pit, of course there were more fatalities at Bentley and also many serious injuries but nothing registered the raw emotion we all felt at the death of our friend Albert Chambers.
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