WHEN keen historian Andrea Finney first set eyes on the diaries of her great-greatgrandmother in the 1970s she had no idea how poignant they would become.

She continued to live her life in Bolton, blissfully unaware that one of Britain’s biggest mining disasters had so dramatically affected her town and her family.

It was not until 2003, when Andrea began to research her family tree, that the devastation of December 21, 1910 and the months that followed, struck her.

She discovered that William Gore, son of her great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Gore and brother to her greatgrandmother Elizabeth Ann Gore, was one of 344 people killed in the Pretoria Pit disaster.

Referring to the extracts from Elizabeth’s diaries, Andrea was saddened to learn that not only did William leave seven distraught children the day he died, he left a heartbroken wife who could not live without him and died herself just four months later.

Andrea compiled a book, using the pages from the diary, to tell the tale of tragedy and loss which faced a family already struggling with the hardships of mining life.

She said: “Researching your family tree is a fascinating project, but when I found out about William I also found out about the disaster and how the family carried on with life after William, which was heartbreaking.” One of the saddest moments revealed in Elizabeth’s diaries is when William and Mary’s 10-yearold daughter, Catherine, or Kitty as she was known, was dragged to the pit head to identify her father by his clothing.

Andrea said: “The night before the disaster Kitty had sewn a blue patch of material on to William’s pit drawers to fix a hole in the knees.

“His body was so badly damaged that Kitty had to identify the blue patch on her father’s pants.”

Ironically, William’s brother, John, also a miner at Pretoria Pit, did not go to work that morning because he had a stomach upset.

Had he been well, Elizabeth’s diaries would have told of losing two sons.

Andrea’s tragic story is just one of 344 which, until the last few years, have never been told.

She said: “The Pretoria Pit disaster wasn’t talked about at school or in our family, it was just brushed under the carpet. I think it was because there was so much hatred for the pit and what happened.

“What I have done and achieved in having the book published to me is beyond belief.

“But also I felt it was a mark of respect to those who died — I wanted to do something that wasn’t just for me. It’s from the heart and it tells the story.

“It is just a pity it was not told over my generation because a lot of people didn’t know about it, and many still don’t.”