There was a time when he felt like the undisputed King of Selston.
Then again, there were several years when he was convinced that he could talk to animals and had even mastered the power of flight – sailing nightly over the headstocks, slag heaps and doggedly beautiful countryside of an isolated East Midlands mining village.
But, deep down, Danny Scott knew that the real King of Selston was and always would be coal. Over the last seven hundred years, coal dust had settled on every inch of Selston. It was in the food he ate, the air he breathed and the words he spoke. It fashioned resilient men like his dad and The Texan; feisty women like his mother, whose right-hook was feared even more than her fondness for house fires.
Danny was a clever bugger – dangerously clever, some said – and fiercely proud of Selston, his dad and his mining heritage. Five generations of his family had spent their working lives underground, providing fuel for the Industrial Revolution, the electrical, rail and motoring revolutions. Without it, the modern age wouldn’t have been so . . . modern.
But as this young boy prepared to follow in his dad’s footsteps, things began to change. The Devil became captain of the local darts team. Fortune tellers held seances in the front room of his council house. And that once unassailable King’s reign seemed to be coming to an end.
For dangerously clever buggers, there was only one option… somewhere else, someone new.
Funny, poignant and alive to the unheralded beauty, purpose and camaraderie of a village which finds itself on the wrong side of history, THE UNDISPUTED KING OF SELSTON shines a light onto a forgotten industry and the dark shadows that wormed their way into the families who got left behind.
Then again, there were several years when he was convinced that he could talk to animals and had even mastered the power of flight – sailing nightly over the headstocks, slag heaps and doggedly beautiful countryside of an isolated East Midlands mining village.
But, deep down, Danny Scott knew that the real King of Selston was and always would be coal. Over the last seven hundred years, coal dust had settled on every inch of Selston. It was in the food he ate, the air he breathed and the words he spoke. It fashioned resilient men like his dad and The Texan; feisty women like his mother, whose right-hook was feared even more than her fondness for house fires.
Danny was a clever bugger – dangerously clever, some said – and fiercely proud of Selston, his dad and his mining heritage. Five generations of his family had spent their working lives underground, providing fuel for the Industrial Revolution, the electrical, rail and motoring revolutions. Without it, the modern age wouldn’t have been so . . . modern.
But as this young boy prepared to follow in his dad’s footsteps, things began to change. The Devil became captain of the local darts team. Fortune tellers held seances in the front room of his council house. And that once unassailable King’s reign seemed to be coming to an end.
For dangerously clever buggers, there was only one option… somewhere else, someone new.
Funny, poignant and alive to the unheralded beauty, purpose and camaraderie of a village which finds itself on the wrong side of history, THE UNDISPUTED KING OF SELSTON shines a light onto a forgotten industry and the dark shadows that wormed their way into the families who got left behind.
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Reviews
Both humorous and profoundly moving, The Undisputed King of Selston offers us a window into a world now lost to time - a community shaped by coal dust, silent fathers, marching bands, working men's clubs, camaraderie and a steadfast sense of pride. In this evocative, unflinching memoir, Scott brings to life the Nottinghamshire mining village of his youth, portraying it as a strange sort of utopia, a place that was both comforting and suffocating. Through his vivid and emotive storytelling he captures the magic of a boyhood lived in the shadow of the pit, and the hardship faced by its miners.