Kellingley Colliery five years on: Life as a nurse
Five years after the closure of Kellingley Colliery, former nurse May Justice gives David Hirst her reflection on life at 'Big K'
A nurse's story
“Being a woman in a man’s world, I had to be strong.”
May Justice was one of the last nurses in the deep coal mining industry.
Now in her 70s, she looks back with great affection on her 35 years in mining.
She was a hospital sister in South Yorkshire and also a district nursing sister, before working in the pits (she can count 15), including 20 years at Kellingley.
“I miss it terribly, because it’s the comradeship and the craic with all the men because theywere really funny. Good sense of humour and happy, except in sad times. No miner everswore in front of me in all those years,” said May.
Her memories include carol services underground on Christmas Eve at Wath Colliery yearsago, eating mince pies and drinking coffee with the men down in the pit bottom, the serviceconducted by a local preacher.
And travelling around the country with Kellingley’s award-winning first aid team.
She’s also seen her fair share of tragedy. And sometimes she had to crawl on her belly toreach an injured miner underground, which could be miles from the pit surface.
May recalls: “All nurses and doctors know that you’ve got what’s called 'the golden hour' –one hour in which, if you can medical aid to that person within that hour, the chances ofsurvival increase dramatically.
"But we could never, ever get the golden hour because it took an hour and a half to get underground to the place where the men were workin. But we still saved many lives.”
The end of the coal industry still hurts for Sister May.
“I feel very sad that it’s gone because miners have so many skills. Machine drivers,electricians, joiners, all the professional people that you need. But their skills were just formining and not transferable to other industries.
"So I worried about them when they were finished. But I think most of them were quite adaptable to moving to other industries.”