When my paternal grandfather turned 13 he was asked what he wanted to do for a living. He said he'd like to be a farmer. They then asked what his father did, and he said he worked down the pit.
The next week, my grandfather left school and started work down the pit.
Perhaps to acknowledge his farming intentions, he was put in charge of the pit pony, which hauled coal up out of the mine all day long. A lot of his job was spent reassuring the horse that descending into a pitch black hole in the ground was a really good idea. He stuck with this until the 1960s when the colliery was finally closed, and then - aware the mines had not been the best for his health - took a cushy job at the new asbestos factory that opened a few years earlier on the same site.
Eventually, by 1990 the world market decided it did not need quite as much asbestos as it thought it did and the factory closed down. So my grandfather retired and had a very long and happy retirement.
Now I hear an Amazon warehouse has opened on the same site, and my cousin is manning the drones packing up goods for transport around the country. Funny how the worst possible jobs have endured across a century in the same location.
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