Gear later said that their genesis probably lay in the towering pitheads, woods and girders of his industrial childhood.
But the men who labour far below the last remaining pitheads of Yorkshire are not fuelling the power stations any more.
Alongside the headgear at the pithead stood the colliery manager's house.
Basic improvements, like the provision of baths at every single pithead in the country, were made - but miners had to wait until nationalisation after the Second World War to see them.
There was Mr Fox and his trucks carting coal from the pitheads and they were held not to be in the coalmining industry.