He shook his head. “Progress moves fast, missus, when there’s money in t’ground.”

Gertrude was still talking to the engineer. We each had saddlebags, with a bottle of water and some chocolate. I put the little wooden engine into my saddlebag, and then joined Gertrude.

“There’s a pile of what the children left behind. It looks so sad and pathetic.”

“Honestly, Kate, those children were given so much. If they chose not to take stuff with them to Stoneville, then it was because they didn’t want it.”

“Stoneville?”

“It’s a very good children’s home in Wakefield, on York Street.” She waved to the man who was making his way towards us. “I told the engineer you’d like to talk to him.”

Someone interrupted the engineer’s progress. He stopped to answer a question.

Gertrude looked up to where the farrier had tethered the horses. “Do the horses and ponies look well, Kate?”

“They do.”

“I’ll go take a look.” She smiled. “Giles is a good farrier. We take the best care of the horses. I make sure the pit ponies have a week a year on the surface. You must come one day when they are brought up. That’s a sight you’d love to photograph. You’d be overjoyed to see them when they have light and air and freedom.”

A man in his fifties, dressed in tweed suit, twill trousers and wellington boots, came to join us. “Kate, this is Mr. Greenwood, the engineer. Mr. Greenwood, my clever friend Mrs. Shackleton. She’ll understand everything and write it all up for her article.” She walked towards the hill, where the horses were standing.

Patiently, Mr. Greenwood explained how this hole in the ground would eventually be transformed into a mine that would provide good quality coal.

I made a few notes. It was a unique experience to be brought here and shown how mining begins, how the earth is scarred and opened so that its black gold can be brought to the surface to keep us warm.

“I suppose the subsidence will help, because you won’t need to dig so far down. Nature will do it for you.”

He frowned. “What subsidence?”

“Subsidence at the other side of the wood—where a building stood.” Something told me not to name that building. “It became unsafe.”

He shook his head. “Well if there had been subsidence, it would have been unsafe, but there wasn’t. We would have found that out when we did the exploratory tests. That building would have stood for a hundred years or more, but they’re shocking houses to maintain. Built in the days when there was a lot more money to be made, in mills and mines and everything else. Fancy villas were all the rage. You could pick one up for a song now.”