North Skelton; Miners queue for their last pay at the ”Bob hole,” It will be noticed they are wearing ordinary clothes , no issue of special gear in those days, some still carrying their carbide lamps, and in their pockets bottles and containers which held water or cold tea, ”No Canteen” underground in the good old days!
However Bill Danby tells us: ”My brother-in-law, Frank Holmes, who was the last Deputy out of North Skelton Ironstone Mine in 1964 states that this is unlikely to be a photograph of the last day at the mine. One of the miners is carrying a carbide lamp and another a candle, whereas, Frank says, North Skelton mine was one of the first to start using electric lamps. Or the picture was a set-up for the occasion. Frank worked most of his life down the mines, first at Lingdale, where in the 1953 disaster he helped carry out the lads burnt in the explosion of methane. On the closure of that mine he transferred to North Skelton. After retiring he volunteered to help at the Skinningrove Mining Museum and put the roof up in the tunnel where they demonstrate what life down there was like.” Bill also suggests ”There is much information on North Skelton Mine from its opening in 1872 on my website ’ The History of Skelton’”
Image courtesy of George Pearson; many thanks to Bill Danby for that update.
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