Dennis Skinner Quotes

I come from a working-class background, and I thought I had to be studying something that would get me a job.

Fiction about mining has a long tradition - Emile Zola's 'Germinal' and Upton Sinclair's 'King Coal' come to mind - and most readers will be aware of the industry's harsh conditions.

And that had a powerful appeal, particularly to those who had been denied the choice to stay on at school, to go to university, to be something else, other than going down the pit.

The way I was brought up, there was a little bit of prodding to do something more practical, and I wasted a lot of time trying to be a practical person.

Oh yeah, I would have been a coal miner, I would think, if I hadn't had tuberculosis when I was 12.

I come from a coal-mining, working-class background. My father was a coal miner.

I am the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner who was determined that his kids get out of the mines. My dad got his first job when he was six years old, in a little village in Wales called Nantyffyllon, cleaning bottles at the Colliers Arms.

My grandfather was from Aberdare. He was a coal miner who emigrated and then continued mining in Pennsylvania.

My family thought it was insanity for me to go into the theater rather than to get an education.

I was shaped by a pit environment and the Second World War. My playground was on the pit tip at Clay Cross and I grew up with that mining background. My father was a miner and my granddad was a miner, and I would say three out of ten on the street where I was born were working in the pits.

I could write about coal miners in Northern Pennsylvania, and people would ask if I was writing about my dad.

My father left school at 14 and became a fitter. He didn't want to be at school.

I grew up among heroes who went down the pit, who played rugby, told stories, sang songs of war.

Being working class, my parents thought, 'Ian's going to uni, the first in the family,' and I'd do dentistry or accountancy. I was going to do accountancy; then I got a C in Economics and thought, 'Why am I doing this?' The only thing I was interested in was books and literature.

For me, the labor movement and public education are linked as the essential building blocks to a strong middle class and a path to the American dream. It's why I went to Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations as an undergrad and then to law school.

Dad was convinced always that I was going to be a road sweeper.

The reason immigrants come to America is to provide their kids with opportunities, but when they say 'opportunity,' they mean a prestigious job and career. When I had the epiphany that I could do music and sustain myself, they were like, 'OK, son, we need to talk to you.'

I was part of the generation that was supposed to become doctors.

When I left school I went onto the shop floor, working 12-hour shifts in a TV factory. My workmates were sharp, skilled and all capable of enjoying higher education - but they didn't have that opportunity.

My grandfather, who brought me up, was a coal miner. I visited the mines with him. I remember it vividly. It was horrible. I'm glad I didn't go into the family business.

I am the son of a mine worker.

In school, all my teachers and my mum were super routing for me to study at Oxford. I picked music as a career choice, and this didn't sit too well with them!

I don't want to compete in mother's field.

You know, both my parents aren't really from this country, and the emphasis was really on education and studying, and TV seemed like it was not the best use of my time for my parents. So ironically, of course, I rebelled completely and now it's how I make a living.

I come from a family of coal miners.