But Leslie Winter was alone. He had adored his house. But his park was bordered by three of his own collieries. He had been a generous man in his ideas. He had almost welcomed the colliers in his park. Had the miners not made him rich! So, when he saw the gangs of unshapely men lunging by his ornamental waters⁠—not on the private part of the park, no, he drew the line there⁠—he would say: “the miners are perhaps not so ornamental as deer, but they are far more profitable.”

But that was in the golden⁠—monetarily⁠—latter half of Queen Victoria’s reign. Miners were then “good working men.”

Winter had made this speech, half apologetic, to his guest, the then Prince of Wales. And the Prince had replied, in his rather guttural English:

“You are quite right. If there were coal under Sandringham, I would open a mine on the lawns, and think it first-rate landscape gardening. Oh, I am quite willing to exchange roe-deer for colliers, at the price. Your men are good men too, I hear.”