XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.english.usage   
   From: G6JPG@255soft.uk   
      
   On 2025/8/29 20:28:36, Sam Plusnet wrote:   
   > On 29/08/2025 18:14, J. P. Gilliver wrote:   
      
      
   []   
      
      
   >> (-:I remember when an American cousin and I were looking at archives in   
   >> the Northumberland record office near Ashington, we were delighted to   
   >> find the pay ledger for a colliery at which some of our ancestors had   
   >> worked - huge (about 3 by 2 feet IIRR) thing, with big pages listing,   
   >> for example, all the miners, with how much coal each had hewed each day   
   >> for a fortnight, and similar. I remember at the end of days finding my   
   >> hands had a thin layer of coal dust, which I remember thinking was   
   >> 150-odd years old ...   
   >>   
   > I think the coal was quite a bit older than that (Devonian?).   
   >   
   I wondered if anyone would come up with that one! (I suppose I could   
   counter-argue that the coal might be, but its conversion into dust ...)   
      
   As to the period, as bones might have said, I'm a genealogist, not a   
   geologist! Mid-north Northumberland coalfield - is that Devonian? (Or is   
   all British coal Devonian?)   
      
   It was Ra*liff* colliery, one of the pits around a village near Hauxley;   
   the village (on what is now the A1068) was called Radcliffe Terrace, but   
   despite the "Terrace" part, was actually a quite large village (bigger   
   than Hauxley at times), until it disappeared almost entirely in the   
   1970s. The first part of its name was variously Ratliff, Radcliffe, and   
   variations. Hmm, we've had another hot summer, so maybe its outlines   
   will have become visible again, let me look ... Hmm, not very, certainly   
   not as clear as it was in 2018. (Google Maps aerial views are often   
   great for seeing vanished outlines!)   
      
   --   
   J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf   
      
   "Dook, that was great but I think the line needs   
   awe. Can you do it again, giving it just a little awe?"   
      
   "Sure, George," said Wayne and looking up at the cross said:   
   "Aw, truly this man is the son of God."   
   (recounted in Radio Times, 30 March-5 April 2013.)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)