Writer Danny Scott’s memoir, The Undisputed King of Selston, delves into Nottinghamshire's rich mining history from a personal and emotional perspective. Marcus Lawrence delves into the journalist’s newest book, and his deep-rooted, generational connections to the city.
At the very beginning of Danny Scott’s memoir, The Undisputed King of Selston, we are taken up to the very top of a hill, only to be led down into the ‘hundreds-of-feet-deep shaft’ at the pit where his dad worked. Starting at the bottom of the hill, Scott’s stylistic prose is rich with nostalgic, sensory detail: from the elderflower tree, whose “flowers were smoky white and drowned everything in their cloying, acrid stench,” to the “summer-storm grey” sky that “stretched menacingly in every direction.” Once at the top of the hill, Scott takes us through an eagle-eyed vision of Nottingham’s mining history – and his own past.
Finding his wings in a village “ruled by coal”, as Scott beautifully coins, has resulted in the creation of this compelling new memoir. In an era where the stories of Britain’s post-industrial heartlands are often flattened into clichés or ignored entirely, Scott’s emotionally candid take feels important. Set in the mining village of Selston, Scott retraces his upbringing as a way to reconnect with his multi-generational mining family – we even catch a glimpse of his grandad, who once worked at a pit in Wansley alongside D.H. Lawrence. In his writing Scott captures domestic struggles set against the political turmoil and anxiety of the 70s and 80s, while bringing to life the workings of a child’s imagination in the midst of it.
Selston was then home to Pye Hill Pit, where Scott’s father worked as a miner. The village has been linked to the ‘black gold’ of coal for centuries – in 1483, a man called Elias Day is recorded to have signed a contract to supply ten wagon-loads of ‘pytte coals’ from the area. Scott describes this world of extraction as “Dad’s natural habitat,” in doing so blending the machinery and danger of the job with the curious nature of a child’s intuition:
Scott captures domestic struggles set against the political turmoil and anxiety of the 70s and 80s, while bringing to life the workings of a child’s imagination in the midst of it
“One of many pits in the Erewash Valley, birthplace of mining in medieval Nottinghamshire. Among Pye Hill’s various shafts, No. 1 carried my dad to depths of 700 feet, where he would work part of a vast coalfield - the best coal in the country, he reckoned - that ran all the way from Nottingham and Gedling, on through Hucknall, Kimberley, Eastwood, Brinsley, Underwood, Jacksdale and Selston…”
Throughout the book, places and objects are sites of memory - each evoking impressions from Scott’s younger self. The ‘Rezzer,’ possibly a settling pond or old industrial reservoir, brings back guilt from a repressed memory involving two teenagers playing in the water. His primary school becomes the birthplace of the nickname that follows him to the very end of the memoir - ‘Clever Bugger’ - and the playfully cruel nickname of a childhood bully: “Sadistic-Lad-Who-Lived-Next-To-The-Bus-Stop-In-A-Non-Pit-House.”
We’re introduced to “The Tin Hat,” a local social club that Scott remembers well: “anyone looking for the beating heart of Selston in the 1970s would have found it right there.” But most nostalgic of all is his first home, the pit-house. Within these walls, the turbulent but loving nature of a mining family is shared: their habits, routines, punishments, illnesses, and the quirks that made them unique. In one of the memoir’s most poignant moments, Scott describes his mother’s blindness, comparing her to the Japanese wartime second lieutenant Hiroo Onoda. Her “soldiering on,” is a phrase that becomes a recurring motif - not just for a mining mother, but for the embattled town of Selston itself.
Danny Scott has lived many fascinating lives since leaving Selston. After an apprenticeship in engineering, he worked a job in counter industrial espionage, became a private investigator, then a painter and decorator, before becoming a successful journalist, interviewing among others Usain Bolt, Sir Paul McCartney, and Mikhail Gorbachev.
In Scott’s journalism he speaks personally and openly; his article, The truth about the 1984 miners strike mirrors the political undercurrent of his memoir. Scott carefully dissects Arthur Scargill’s controversial ballot in 1984, which excluded the likes of his father from voting - resulting in a historic strike that reshaped the mining industry.
Scott is well-placed to reflect on how the coal industry became a haunting shadow of his village’s past; in The Undisputed King of Selston he weaves together this political and journalistic insight with the inquiring voice of his younger self, and the result is a rich, heartfelt exploration of how the child became the writer.
What’s most striking about the book is Scott’s extended metaphor of flight, which appears throughout. At times, it reads like a yearning for escape - but interestingly, this escape rarely reaches beyond the boundaries of Selston. Perhaps for Scott, flight isn’t really about leaving, but about perspective. As his inner child ‘flies,’ we see his curiosity from above - his desire to understand, to bear witness, and to tell stories.
His ambition to view Selston and its departed mining culture as a whole is what emotionally enraptures the reader. And Scott’s intention? He tells the Derbyshire Times: “I started this book for my young son, but I finished it for my dad, for Selston and for a glorious childhood that was guarded and guided by coal. I finished it in the hope we never forget the East Midlands’ proud mining history.”
Danny Scott’s The Undisputed King of Selston, is available at all good bookstores.
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?
