Some of them simply dreads those iron men, as they call them, those machines for hewing the coal, where men always did it before. And they say it’s wasteful as well. But what goes in waste is saved in wages, and a lot more. It seems soon there’ll be no use for men on the face of the earth, it’ll be all machines. But they say that’s what folks said when they had to give up the old stocking frames. I can remember one or two. But my word, the more machines, the more people, that’s what it looks like! They say you can’t get the same chemicals out of Tevershall coal as you can out of Stacks Gate, and that’s funny, they’re not three miles apart. But they say so. But everybody says it’s a shame something can’t be started, to keep the men going a bit better, and employ the girls. All the girls traipsing off to Sheffield every day! My word, it would be something to talk about if Tevershall Collieries took a new lease on life, after everybody saying they’re finished, and a sinking ship, and the men ought to leave them like rats leave a sinking ship. But folks talk so much. Of course there was a boom during the war. When Sir Geoffrey made a trust of himself and got the money safe forever, somehow. So they say! But they say even the masters and the owners don’t get much out of it now.