Mr. Mitchell with the diesel engine at the pithead.

Busily engaged in his own little industrial revolution on Merrill's Head Farm, Mr. John Simpson Little of Merrill's Head Farm, Cliviger, who along with a five-man team, works a coal seam that is at least 200 years old. Mr. Little (36) and his right hand man Mr. Rodney Mitchell of Todmorden, started working the derelict mines on the Merrill's Head area in 1961 on a part-time basis and then secured a licence for full-time mining. Mr. Little who is married with three children also has four men working the coal seam in the mine which is about 150 yards down. Explained Rodney: "The pit we are working at the moment is highly productive and we have working the seam four men who were originally with the National Coal Board." Asked what the Coal Board's reaction was to the six diggers, he said: "They consider us the fly in the ointment but my answer is that we are making money." In fact much of the coal produced by Mr. Little is sold back to the board and the rest is on offer to local people who go along to the pithead each week to return home with bulging sacks of good cheap coal.

Neither Rodney nor John could say just how long the particular seam they are working will last but they both contended that the coal was of good quality and relatively easy to work. Rodney went on to say that the area around Merrill's Head was littered with old workings, some of which dated back 300 years. Shafts as well as pits have been explored, and in one of them he found the remains of an old wooden bowl. "I wouldn't like to estimate the age of it but it was obviously very old" said Rodney. The workings at the pithead, a diesel engine, the conveyor belt where the coal runs, and a place to house the coal were all fitted by this team of miners.