Neil (nt) wrote,
Neil
nt
One set of my great-grandparents apparently emigrated to Canada from a town called Midsomer Norton, Somerset in England. This was a coal mining community. From a website: "The miners... had to work lying down in puddles of black water that dripped from the seams, lighted only by a few candles... Boys of thirteen had to pull sledges loaded with the coal from the face to the shaft. To do this they crawled on all fours with a rope tied around their waist, passing under their crotch to a chain and hook fastened to the sled... The local people of Somerset were marginally more financially secure but at the price of bent and broken bodies, ill-health and early death."

In my job, I am at least warm and dry, and run no risk of physical injury (other than the occasional paper cut). I am sometimes bored, and sometimes stressed out, but overall I have little to complain about. I am glad I am alive now, rather than 100 years ago. And I am glad that my great-grandparents got out of Midsomer Norton.
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