'A great fall of roof' - the Hamilton mine disaster

He denied he’d been warned, that the conversations had ever taken place. After all, James Sharp was acting Overman at the Hamilton Pit, and his word would be sure to stand over that of the miners before the Coroner. Sharp had the authority.

The story of Donald's Corner

When you were growing up in Hamilton’, I asked memoir writer Margaret Colditz ‘where was the money?’ 

‘The money’, she responded without a second’s pause, ‘was in Donald’s Corner’.

A Mine Manager's retreat - the AA Company house

Status is having a house on the crest of a hill, fireplaces in every room, and your own underground water tank  so you don’t have to queue to draw water with the wives of miners.

Status can also mean responsibility - lying awake, desperate for sleep, dreading the first light. Imagine that your boss, Superintendent of the AA Company, [1] has commissioned you to bring in ‘scab labour’ from Victoria and South Australia, and to destroy the coal miners union, once and for all.