In 1978, shortly after I began researching my family history I was contacted by a gentleman called Bert Gay in response to a newspaper advertisement. Mr Gay lived at Alma Road, Kingswood, which runs into Holly Hill Road

Having discovered that many of my paternal ancestors had earned their living toiling underground in the former mines of the Kingswood district, I was anxious to talk to anyone with first hand experience.

Bert Gay had not worked in the mines himself but his grandfather, Robert King had told him many times of how at the age of seven he had gone down the mine “sitting in a bucket, on a miner’s lap, carrying a candle.”  Bert went to the workshop at the back of the house and returned with a t-shaped iron candlestick that had once belonged to his grandfather.  Bert placed this precious artefact in my hands.

The Kingswood mines were not considered fiery and the men worked by the light of candles held in these candlesticks either in their hat bands or with the pointed end stuck in the wall of the shaft.

The stub of candle was added by me, though now it is also more than 30 years old. I used to give talks with the assistance of my son Kevin, then about eight, dressed as a child miner for many young boys of six and above worked in the mines. When I “lit him up”, the candle stuck in his round hat, an audible gasp would go round the room. But that’s another story.

Robert King worked at Parkfield Colliery, Coalpit Heath and made the daily journey on foot from Holly Hill Road, along the Dram Road  which ran from the Chequer’s Inn on Hanham River to Britton, Warmley, Mangotsfield, Shortwood and Coalpit Heath – a distance of some six miles. The coals were taken by horses from the pits to the river, via the Dram Road where they were loaded on to barges. Robert King was a very strong man, said Bert and he recalled him “tossing around two hundredweight sacks of barley mow as if they were nothing.”

In 1841 Robert King then aged four lived with his father and mother, Samuel and Hester and various siblings in Warmley. His father was, of course, a coalminer. I was able to track Robert’s life through various censuses and addresses in the Kingswood area and his work as a miner, until 1891 by which time he had retired. He married Mary Ann Britton from the numerous local family of that name in 1862. Mary Ann died at the early age of 40 in 1879 leaving him a widower with five daughters and two sons between 17 and six years old. The youngest, Florence would stay with him and when she married Alfred Gay in 1906, Robert lived with them at Holly Hill Road. In the house in 1911 were Florence and Alfred, and Robert aged 73.  You can imagine my joy, for also there, aged 3, was my friend Bert Gay!