Doris was so fascinated she didn’t even correct the spelling. She turned page after page, until the final paragraph moved her to tears. Evelyne had copied down two lines from one of Christina Rossetti’s poems: Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land, followed by a few lines in which she said that, for many in her village, there would be no distant land, just the blackness of the mine, the blackness of death hanging over them. The blackness never stopped the laughter, the love, but so many lives were lost, and too easily forgotten.

From the schoolroom window, Doris stared down into the village. It was growing dark, and the few streetlights twinkled. In the half-light Doris could see the groups of miners gathering and moving towards the pithead for the night shift.

A hawker led his pony and cart through the village, crying that his apples were cheap, just threepence a pound. Grey house crouched close to grey house, each opening directly on to the street; there were no gardens, no colours to relieve the grey. Doris sighed. Even the leaves were grey, never green, and the berries black before they were red.

Doris hugged her brown coat around her, closed up the school and walked down to the village. It was strange to think that only a few hundred yards from here was that wondrous valley sheltered by mountains, their lower slopes covered with the darker greenness of trees,

the upper by the lighter mountain grasses and ferns which seemed to reach up to meet the sky. Then there was the river, curving across the width of the valley, coursing slowly along the ten miles that separated the village from the sea at Swansea. Doris’ heart often ached to have all that beauty so close, and yet their houses huddled, cramped together with the massive furnaces, the coal slags and trams looming above them, the colliery dominating and overpowering the village.