It was the twenty-fourth of December, yet even on Christmas Eve the miners remained in their holes beneath the earth, far from their families and warm lights. Without their labour, Londoners would not be able to heat their homes this winter. The “black faces,” as they were known, dug coal all day and all year long. It was hard, dangerous work, but tonight was a special occasion down the mine. The black faces would not let the evening pass without celebration, and the observation of a Christmas tradition. Tonight, all the workers from the mine would gather to light candles and sing Christmas carols. Far down below, the hewers, the coal cutters, the cart pushers, the carpenters, the rock movers, the shot firers, the winch operators and the receivers would all hum their incantations in the dark recesses of the coal mine. They’d be joined by the engineers and lamplighters up top, as together they celebrated a moment of unity. They would say they their prayers, and ask God to spare them from an early grave – most miners got the black lung before they retired, and lots of them suffered other ailments, but the mines were a place of brotherhood between the workers.
“My boy shall have his present in the morning, and I won’t be home to see him open it,” said a hewer to a shot firer.
“Shame, I’d have liked to see his little face. The wife will tell me all about it, but it’s not the same.”
“What did you give him?”
“A little something I spent a month carving. Takes some effort to start doing woodwork after a day down here, I can tell you. But I’m happy with it. Put the last coat of varnish on it last night.”
“A sculpture? So you’re an artist now? What did you make, a toy solider? A game of skittles?”
“Nah, much better mate!”
“Give us a clue!”
“Something he can sit on…”
“A stool?”
“A stool from Father Christmas? You’re full of imagination. It’s a rocking horse, you ninny.”
“Blimey, a horse? You don’t mess about, do you?”
As the pit boys chatted, the foreman lit a match and set it to their candle wicks. The miners took their missals from their pockets. The tunnel was alight and they sang in full voice, their hands upon each other’s shoulders. Christmas Eve was here. The black faces dreamed of working outside in nature, perhaps on a farm. Most of them had never been given any other choice but the mines. They bled for their families, and missed them terribly tonight of all nights. As they sang, their wives would be coming home from midnight mass, waiting for their husbands beneath the small tree they had decorated. The children would be in bed, with a few presents scattered around the fireplace: an orange, a lead soldier, a ragdoll, and perhaps a fine rocking horse. One by one the lights would go out in the cottage windows, and dark night would descend upon the mining town. Deep down in the bowels of the earth, the men took up their tools and went back to work.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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