Members of the Weldone gang from Brierfield working in the sole flue beneath the Lancashire boiler, Easter holiday, April 1976
Two men rake, shovel and brush to fill buckets with flue dust. Here the scene is lit to enable photography, but usually the men worked in just the faint beam of their head torches. They would keep up a constant banter to make sure the other hadn’t passed out. If conversation flagged, they would sing: ‘Isn’t it grand, boys ? To be bloody well dead / Let’s not have a sniffle / Let’s have a bloody good cry / And always remember: the longer you live / The sooner you bloody well die’
