Here is a letter from Mr Fred Perks of 23 Park Street, applying for some coal allowance after 51 years service.
Dear Sir,
I left school 1st March 1911 and started work at Gilpins Edge Tool Works on 2nd March 1911 when I was twelve and worked there for one year working 11 hour shifts from 6am – 5pm with one hour break, and Saturdays 6am – 1pm all for one shilling a week.
I worked there for one year and started down the mine when I was fourteen at Great Wyrley Ltd (Plant Pit). I started at the pit bottom tramming tubs to an endless rope, and then I went as a Gripper, afterwards a Pony Driver, then a short time as a loader in a stall. The stallmen at that time used candles, using clay to stick candles on trees. Sometime after they had an explosion and they finished with naked lights.
I left to work at the West Cannock Fives Hednesford round about 1930. I used to cycle 10 miles a day to work. It was a tiresome time winter and summer after a hard days work. I had two brothers working at Hawkins Colliery and they begged me to join them. I finished at Hawkins in 1942. I would have kept on at Hawkins Colliery but the air raids kept us awake all night and we stayed down the cellar where it was cold and damp. I caught a cold on my chest and my doctor Mrs Malone sent me to Dr Currop at Stafford who advised me to leave the pits. Then I started on the Opencast in 1942 and I finished in 1963 when I was 65 years old, 30 years in the pits and 51 years in the coal industry.
Yours faithfully
Mr F Perks
The application for any coal allowance was turned down.

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