A Workingman's Cemetery

<p>The Hunter coalfields. Then and now. An extinct mining community lies at rest in a small but crowded <em>bone orchard</em>. Its gravedigger led a spectacularly unkempt life while holding firmly to the belief that <em>a soul would not rest in a hole dug by machine</em>. As the coalpit and village declined he buried almost everyone he knew before joining them.</p><p><br></p><p>'Out of an ordinary former coal mining town come these extraordinary stories and extraordinary characters. So wonderful you'd wish they were true. A beguiling and loving evocation'. - Louis Nowra</p><p><br></p><p>'Tim Gooding brings the dead to life. A gallery of pigeon fanciers strikers rascals bar brawlers shunters communists and pit queens you won't forget. Wry and unsentimental this collection embodies the gritty culture of mining communities now extinct.' - Caroline Baum</p>