On their bikes

The Durham miner project has some personal histories ,I liked especially the diary of Joseph Pickering.

Joseph Pickering doesn't leave the north, but he moves from coalfield to coalfield in the period of slump in miners' employment that lasted from the general strike until the war, and describes the black listing of some militants - the conditions driving the migration to the kent coalfields.

Even so, after coming to Kent, many left again, 300 families within the first two years alone- the heat of the mine, the lack of amenties, the chaotic frontier feel of the new town all contributing-