Read time: 13 mins
Whitehaven is a small port town on the coast of Cumbria, where coal means both life and death.
It was death in 1947, when an explosion at the William Pit killed 104 miners, and again in 1910, when a fire at the Wellington Pit trapped and killed 136, some of whom had time to scrawl chalk messages onto the doors.
Yet the coal that was dug out from around Whitehaven for around 300 years also provided life to its residents, both economically and spiritually. That ended in 1986, when the last pit, Haig Colliery, closed.
Today, the town feels the lack of it.
