Crump Meadow Pit, Cinderford - Dean Mining Schools (General)

by dent , Thursday, October 05, 2017, 17:50 (2400 days ago) @ Jefff

Thank you so much, as ever, Jeff. You helped me some years ago with my researches into my great uncle Frank Dent, a WW1 casualty. I got my father's date of starting work wrong - it was 9 October 1918, but still during WW1. I have the certificate which permitted him to leave school (Double View) and is said to be in gainful employment. His father, Richard, worked at Crump Meadow at some time. The only photograph I have of Richard Dent is with some other colliers beside a row of railway trucks, so I think he may also have worked above ground. He became a jobbing builder, so I don't think my father would have been apprenticed to him. I agreed that it's difficult to conceive of a 13 years old boy beginning a 7 year formal apprenticeship. I have no knowledge of this. I do know that my father was a competent electrician, though of course an amateur by today's health and safety standards. I had always believed that he worked at Crump Meadow until 1928, when he went off to college to begin his ministerial training. The pit closed shortly after that, didn't it? I'll certainly follow out the suggestions you make and for which I am most grateful. Christopher