At Christmas time the kids always used to get a great big bag of toffees and they used to get a good present. They used to have marvellous raffles at the Welfare, with very good prizes.
Summit was known as the happy pit and it was always decent money at Summit.

My brother worked at the pit but my father never did.

My dad had a stroke when he was about 40 and he was paralysed. When I said that I had got a job at the pit he said "No, he's not going, lock him up in his bedroom" and I went barmy, but he let me go and then our youth (my brother) belted me when he came home.

I enjoyed it at the pit and I’ve had a good life out of the pit.

I never should have gone on to be a deputy as I wasn't a very good gaffer, I’d sooner do things me sen (myself)

I remember old Percy Bald, when the tubs were coming in, you had to kick this point across and one day Percy got his foot fast in the guide rail and about 4 ton went over his toe, his shoe was flat and he was screaming and when they took his shoe off all he had were 4 red marks on his toes. We used to come home on the bus with Bert Bonsall and he always fell asleep on the bus and we used to say "did you oversleep Bert" and he would say "no I was going to do a bit of shopping in Masfield. Mr Booth was the smallest boy that was working at the pit when the mines were nationalised they erected a flag. Mr Booth waved the white handkerchief and the flag was hoisted.

Mr Powell born 1934 Kirkby-in-Ashfield.
I was born in a pit house as my father worked at Summit.

I enjoyed my work at the pit, it was very much like changing conditions because we were able to take different things on. You'd do so many shifts in what you call the engineering part, so many shifts in the blacksmith's part and then you'd do little jobs for the joinery. Ifyou didn't like electricity you didn't bother with that one.

There were quite a lot of accidents but they were dealt with by a very good ambulance crew, of which I was the founder member.