South Yorkshire times, January 12th, 1957
Desperate Fight To Reach Trapped Men.
Two Lose Their Lives in fall of Coal at Denaby.
Despite a desperate fight by rescue workers to reach two Denaby Main miners who were completely buried by a fall of coal at the pit on Wednesday night, both men were dead when thay were released. Rescuers realised a third man, who is detailed in Mexborough Montagu Hospital.
Killed were Mr. Jengings (62), 11 Horace Avenue, Swinton, and Mr. Horace Cocksedge (44). The Crescent, Conanby. The injured man is Mr. Harry Shaw (33), 73, Oak Grove, Conisbrough.
Jennings had arrived at the scene of the fall only a few minutes before the fall occurred.
Rescue workers were at first unable to reach Shaw, who was trapped by his legs. He was detained in the Monatgu Hospital with a fractured collarbone and general abrasions.
Good Friends.
Cocksedge, a power loader, operator, had worked at the pit since leaving school. His wife, Mrs. Hannah Cocksedge, works at Mexborough Monatgu Hospital.
Cocksedge was a very good friend of the injured man. They had arranged to go to Doncaster together this Saturday to see the Doncaster Rovers football match.
Shaw, who has been working at Denaby Main as a collier since 1948, served during the war in the Black Watch. He worked for a few months, after leaving school, at the Hatfield steel works in Sheffield. He has a wife, Mrs. S. Shaw, and two children, aged seven and two.
The two Conisbrough men were also good friends of Jennings.
‘They were a well-known partnership at the colliery,’ Mrs. Shaw told a reporter.
Mineworker All His Life.
Jennings had been a deputy at Denaby Main since about 1926. His only son, Ernest, a schoolmaster in Scunthorpe, travelled overnight to Swinton after he had been informed of the accident by Scunthorpe police. He arrived in Swinton in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Mr. Jennings told the ‘South Yorkshire Times’ that his father had worked in the mines all his life except during the 1914-18 war, when, as a soldier with the K.O.Y.L.I., he was taken prisoner by the Germans in France. During the second World War he was a member of the A.R.P.
For many years he was secretary of Swinton branch of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, and was a holder of the Brigade’s long service medal. He had attended ambulance classes since the early 1920’s. Two years ago, he relinquished his position as secretary, but maintained his association with the branch.
Shaw was last night stated to be ‘poorly but comfortable.’