Life Lessons From Out of the Dark Ages, Courtesy of the Big Pit

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'it's a beautiful day. Where would you like to go?' 'Let's go down the pit!' It sounds a perverse decision when you're offered the choice of anywhere in South Wales. But most of the male members of my family had worked underground in one job or another and I'd always wanted to go down. I asked permission once, when I was writing a television script about a man trapped underground. But the answer was 'Not likely!' uttered with all the vigour of Eliza Doolittle's 'Not bloody likely!' I felt as if I'd asked to attend an initiation ceremony in the local Freemason's lodge. Apparently the miners' lodge was equally 'close tiled'.

Now, about 50 years later, we drove to the celebrated Big Pit in Blaenavon, and attempted to buy tickets, the way you do at award- winning tourist attractions. Mistake: entrance is free. It's not a commercial venture - it's a museum., and it belongs to us. We were all issued with lamps and belts and helmets, with special small- sized ones for the five little boys from places like Bournemouth and Australia who were among the most excited visitors. We were frisked for contraband matches or batteries, and the cage took us down at a genteel pace compared to the tooth-rattling speed at which the miners had normally been dropped.

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Life Lessons From Out of the Dark Ages, Courtesy of the Big Pit

The experience was totally absorbing, thanks largely to the man who was condu...

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