honestly, I am wasting my time here it seems
it wasn't a lecture, it was a fairly decent chat, we were the last tour he was doing that day, he showed us where to hang our headlights and we walked out to the center grass bit together chatting, in fact I remember him saying to my daughters " imagine what it would be like coming to the surface and seeing the sun after a shift on the face " ( of course that might not have happened either as he might have been a ginger and scared of the sun ), as it happens, I said to him " we are of for a coffee, fancy a cuppa to end your day ", he thanked me but declined the offer
how we got onto the closures we were just chatting about what it meant to valleys communities, when he said he wasn't unhappy that it closed and his son wouldn't follow him and his fathers foot steps, I said I was surprised by that and always thought the miners were hard done by and shafted by Maggie, which he then said his opinion wasn't uncommon and all his workmates thought the same
( of course I should have called him out on it and asked him for proof incase someone from cowbridge doubted me in a few years )