A Pit Man's Story Albert Edward Phillips (1896-1978)

Born in a Shropshire "Squatter's Cave" near Nesscliffe, the author's Grand-Father saw service on "The Somme" in the 1914 -1918 Great War, as a member of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry Regiment. After the War he attempted to get work at Meadow Pit and along with most of the Nation's work force, struggled through the 1926 National Strike, before spending 35 years at Ifton Colliery, Shropshire's largest. Albert Phillips retired aged 65 in 1964, four years before its closure.

He died in Cross House's Hospital in August 1978 and is buried with his wife Alice (nee Morgan), in St Martin's Cemetery near Oswestry. On clearing his effect's a threat of committal to prison for the non payment of housing rates was discovered, sent by the very authorities who had placed him in hospital. A very Proud and Respectable man, who always knew his right hand, from his left. Qualities that would have shone through had he witnessed one of his great-grand Daughter's graduate from Exeter University in 1998. The 6th Battalion KSLI at Ypres, 1916 I remember well, those scars of blue, That covered my Granddad's hands. Hands that were gnarled and wrinkled, The hands of a working man. Many a man bore the scars, From the work they had to do, But only the working miner's hands, Had the scars forever blue.