大象传媒

My husband Leslie Wheatley and I were married at Ironville Church in 1931. I met him whilst working and living in at a pub there. Leslie originally worked at the Manners Pit at Ilkeston but they were not doing much work there sometimes only one or half a shift a week and then knocking off. Money was tight for miners in the area.

Leslie went to Pye Hill Colliery to inquire after a job but the manager was on holiday for the week and so he ended up at Selston and got a job there. So we returned to Ironville where my parents lived on King William Street.

Leslie was a miner throughout the war but had originally tried to join the navy, he went into Nottingham to register. Once on the register they told him that they needed his identity/National Insurance cards, which he returned with the following day. When they saw that it said miner as his occupation they sent him back home saying 'go back home my lad and get coal to keep the navy going', which, he did, working alongside people such as the Bevin Boys.

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