My father became a navvy around 1903. His are the words in this typeface throughout the book. He was born at Riddlesdown in Surrey in the early 1880s. His father was a settled man, a road-mender and labourer.
My mother was born a navvy-woman at the Elan Valley dams in mid-Wales in 1900. Her father was also born into navvying, in the 1870s at Appleby-in-Westmorland where his father was a navvy on the Carlisle-Settle line. Their name was Jewell, which is Cornish.
Dick Sullivan
London, 1983
Last modified 19 April 2006