Daily Photo – Aberafon Street, Middlemarch

Just for second, imagine beginning inside this iron tube. Eight men wedged in this space, the clank of shafts, the hiss of pumps, the smoke of oil lamps, an air supply slipping away through a leaking valve, insufficient pressure to expel water, all the while waiting to find out if the contraption will rise back up to the surface. Standing here today, I could help but think volunteering to go in such a thing lands somewhere between absurd and heroic.