I grew up in a mining town in the north of England.
It was really a village, with 200 residents.
You could see the wheels of the mines’ winding houses from the streets between the terraced houses.
In the yards at the mine there were mountains of coal.
Coal seemed to be everywhere. Bits of it lay on the streets where it fell from the carts that delivered it to the houses.
We lit our fires with coal. We even bathed with soap made from coal.
In the Victorian era, it was called King Coal.
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