At the Coalface

A heart-warming story of a woman who devoted her life to helping others. This is the memoir of Joan, who started nursing in the 1940s and whose experiences took her into the Yorkshire mining pits and through the tumult of the 1984-85 miners’ strike. Joan Hart always knew what she wanted to do with her life. Born in South Yorkshire in 1932, she started her nursing training when she was 16, the youngest age girls could do so at the time. She continued working after she married and her work took her to London and Doncaster, caring for children and miners. When she took a job as a pit nurse in Doncaster in 1974, she found that in order to be accepted by the men under her care, she would have to become one of them. Most of the time rejecting a traditional nurse’s uniform and donning a baggy miner’s suit, pit boots, a hardhat and a headlamp, Joan resolved always to go down to injured miners and bring them out of the pit herself. Over 15 years Joan grew to know the miners not only as a nurse, but as a confidante and friend. She tended to injured miners underground, rescued men trapped in the pits, and provided support for them and their families during the bitter miners’ strike which stretched from March 1984 to 1985. Moving and uplifting, this is a story of one woman’s life, marriage and work; it is guaranteed to make readers laugh, cry, and smile.

Joan Hart was a nurse for 46 years. During her career Joan witnessed many things, but she says it was her days working as a pit nurse, tending to men both under and over ground, which helped form who she is today. Joan is also the co-author of a book called ‘Guide to Radiotherapy Nursing’. Now aged 82 years old, she refuses to grow old gracefully. Joan took her driving test at the age of 54, dabbled in wing walking and sky diving at a 75, and yet, shows no signs of slowing down. Joan still spends her days caring for others because for her nursing isn’t just a job; it’s a way of life. Veronica Clark has been a journalist for 26 years, writing real-life features for national newspapers and magazines. During the past three years, she has ghost written six books, A Dog Called Dez, Stolen Girl, Justice for Colette, Coming Clean – Living with OCD (all John Blake Publishing) and two memoirs for HarperCollins Publishers.