Patrick Murtagh

Patrick Murtagh

A local author's dream is coming true to have her first book used as a teaching tool in England-based classrooms.

It wasn't until last year that Cambridge resident Amanda Roberts secured a publisher for her book, 104 Men; but it was years earlier, at the age of eight, when the sight of a boarded up coal mine became the author's "haunting".

Now an award-winning book, 104 Men tells of the lives of 104 miners who lost their lives in 1947 when disaster struck at the William Pit coal mine in Whitehaven, a small community - the author's hometown - in northwest England. But rather than tell the tale of the disaster, Roberts used the book's pages to tell the stories of the miners, their families: their lives, and not their deaths. Two of Roberts' ancestors were among the 104 miners.

"Seeing everything that has happened...it fulfilled something in me," Roberts said of completing the book.

And now those stories will be available for school teachers in Cumbria County, where Whitehaven is located, to use to teach children about the 104 miners. All royalties from Roberts' book will go to pay a retired teacher, who is putting together a mining history teaching package, to do research and pay for the materials needed for the package, said the author. Once complete, the package will be available at the county's archives office.

A memorial that honours the 104 miners who died is sometimes vandalized and Roberts said an educational package might help youth find more respect for it.

Roberts - who wrote the book under her maiden name, Amanda M. Garraway - attended the book's launch last year in Whitehaven and did a signing, which she had been most nervous about.

"It was just a continuous line," she said of the crowd of people that showed up to purchase the book.

And many of the people who stood in line were people who Roberts had corresponded with from Canada as she gathered old photographs and letters from the 104 miners' living relatives.

"I found that emotional," admitted the author.

She went to the signing at a quaint bookstore and expected a sombre atmosphere. But there weren't many tears.

"There was a lot of laughter," she said.

Someone suggested the book created a sense of closure, said the author. Another person told Roberts that it was as if the book brought back to life the men who were lost at ages far too young.

To add to Roberts' sense of accomplishment, 104 Men was recently awarded the Saint and Co. Prize for Business and Industry at the Lakeland Book of the Year Award competition in England.

"I went in expecting nothing," said Roberts, "but hoping for everything."

The author maintains that writing 104 Men was a personal journey that began on the day she first saw the boarded up mine. Now she is working on another project: she is currently researching the life of a coal miner who died in 1847, 100 years before the William Pit disaster. This miner, said Roberts, insisted that the William Pit be shut down because it was unsafe. It became known as the most dangerous pit in the United Kingdom. Roberts plans to write a screenplay or a script for dramatic theatre. This miner holds a special place in her heart, she said, because doing research on him is what led her to do research for her first book.

The miner's words of caution 100 years earlier fell on deaf ears.

"But his words proved to be true," said Roberts.

In a letter mailed to author Amanda Roberts from England, Margaret Murtagh praised the author's book. Murtagh, who lost her 28-year-old husband, Patrick, in the mine disaster, wrote:

"While reading your lovely book so many memories came back to me as clear as if it was yesterday...

"It has taken 60 years for someone like you to come along and say and do what should have been done all those years ago."

After speaking with her for 104 Men, Roberts said Murtagh, 86, was still in love the husband she lost so long ago. The couple had been together since they were both 16.

Murtagh died in December.