Bertie Louis Coombes

Bertie Louis Coombes, or B. L. Coombes, was a coal miner, notable for his autobiography "These Poor Hands: The Autobiography of a Miner in South Wales" (1939) which became an instant best seller. He also produced short stories, dramas and other autobiographical works about the lives of coalminers and the communities in which they lived.

Coombes was born in Wolverhampton, England on January 12, 1893. He was the only child of James Coombs Griffiths, at that time a grocer, and Harriet Thompson.

A few years after Bertie's birth, the Coombes family dropped the surname Griffiths and moved to Treharris in South Wales where his father took work at the Deep Navigation Colliery and Bertie attended elementary school. In 1905 or 1906 his parents took a tenancy of a small farm in Madley, Herefordshire and Bertie left school to work as a farm labourer. He later became a groom for a local doctor but his family always struggled to pay the farm rent and in 1910, he left home and moved to South Wales to become a miner.

Coombes settled in Resolven in the Vale of Neath and started work as a collier's helper in an anthracite mine. In 1913 he married Mary Rogers, the daughter of the secretary to the local lodge of the South Wales Miners' Federation. They had one daughter, Rose, born the following year, and a son, Peter, born ten years later. Their union was to last fifty-six years. He spent forty years working underground.

Coombes realised that those outside the coal-mining industry had little idea of the activities of miners and the dangers they faced. Despite his limited education, Coombes felt the urge to inform the general public about the mining industry and mining communities. When in his forties, he started doing this, writing in the evenings after a day in the pit. At first his manuscripts were rejected by publishers but eventually he was fortunate enough to encounter John Lehmann, the publishing editor of New Writing. This literary magazine sought to break down social barriers and published works by working-class authors as well as by educated middle-class writers.

He published Coombes' short story, "The Flame", which gave a detailed description of the terrifying ordeal of a miner, lying prone in an eighteen-inch coal seam, when seeping methane is ignited by his carbide lamp while he is packing dynamite into a hole. The story was much acclaimed and brought invitations from other publishers. More short stories followed, mostly based on real-life events he had experienced.

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