Until they were modified in the 1950’s they had outdoor toilet blocks with pans that had to be emptied and families carried a tin bath into the kitchen to bathe. The kitchen had a coal fired range with oven, updated to one not dissimilar to the one I remembered from my early childhood in a 1950’s NCB rented semi,.
Outside the Industry Nottinghamshire miners were viewed as eminently reasonable and level headed during the 1984 dispute. The truth was more likely that they saw themselves as independent factions driven by self- interest, the only common denominator being what they did for a living.
In the Nottinghamshire I knew, the pits stood for community supporting generations of families often living and working in less than ideal circumstances. They also supported introverted class snobbery. My earliest recollection of my future mother in law, apart from being viewed with deep suspicion because I wasn’t local, was her reaction to the news that I was going to college.
“What gives you the right to think you are better than the rest of us? Why aren’t you getting a job as a cleaner?”