Year 5 and 6 visited the National Coal Mining Museum on
Monday 23rd January to find out about life at work for children in
Victorian Britain. When they got back,
they imagined being the inspectors they heard about; listening to stories from
the children who worked underground.
Here’s what they heard...
Inspector Alisha:
“I hate the mine.” Said an eight-year old boy named Samuel
Fletcher.
“It is pitch - black down
there – when you get down there you can’t see a thing. On my very first time my
Father stayed with me for only a few seconds – and when he left he took his
lantern with him so I was left all alone in the dark. Another horrible job to do is pull a heavy cart of coal
while my step – sister pushes. One mistake I did when I was about five years
old was to take a piece of nice, creamy cake
down with me to the mine. I put it next to me so I could shovel up the coal at
the same time. When I was finished, however,
I reached out for my delicious piece of cake – but it wasn’t there! Some horrid, greedy
mice had eaten it!
“As scary as this was I couldn’t blame my Father for making
me work hard. I mean, he himself must have once needed to work hard to earn his
two-and a half pence a week. All of
these things seem scary, but the most scariest thing is the cage. The cage is a contrapment which takes you down to the mine. It
might be safer than the rope but if you fall through you can face much worse consequences.
I’d better lower my voice now – I need to tell you something that the mine –
people cannot hear me saying. I personally think that they force me and the
other children to work overly hard.”
No comments:
Post a Comment