Desford Colliery Village (2)

Desford Colliery, date unknown. Photo courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland.

Interviewer: Which village are we talking about?

Mrs Harris: Well, then they called it Desford Colliery Village, it was between Bagworth and Desford Village. The buses used to have a title, Desford Colliery Village.

Interviewer: Is it still standing?

Mrs Harris: No, no, in fact there’s nothing there now, nothing at all, no houses, nothing.

Interviewer: So it was purely for people who worked in the mines?

Mrs Harris: That’s right, just Desford Colliery, yes.

Interviewer: Was it just houses or were there other facilities?

Mrs Harris: No, not for the start, no, just houses. Of course the colliery as you’d expect, you know, but nothing else. That came very, very gradually. At the time when we got married my mum and dad plus the rest of the family had been promised a house a little bit further up the street and they’d made that into a shop. The shop would be open before 6.30 in the morning so that the miners could come in and get a little refreshment, whatever they needed to take down to work. My mum and dad had that position. Then I used to help Mum in the shop, if the men wanted any sandwiches making - because that was before the days of the canteen – I used to help her to put the sandwiches up. The men used to come in for cigarettes, but they weren’t allowed to smoke really, but the men came in for cigarettes in the early morning. Mum had a list with the people’s names on and they used to say, ‘I’ll pay for this at the end of the week’, they did, the majority of them did, yes they were quite loyal like that. It kept us quite busy looking after that little shop.

Interviewer: Was that their own business or were they paid to do it?

Mrs Harris: It was Mum’s own, Mum and Dad’s business. They didn’t own the house or anything like that. But then when war started and we had to have ration cards and points for this and point for that, it got too much for Mum, she couldn’t quite fathom all these things out and she carried on a while but eventually the canteen was built and the men could get meals at the canteen, so Mum said it wasn’t really worth it.

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