Interview
LIsland Heart , Northern Soul
We ’ re constantly being told that the old idea of a ‘ career for life ’ is well and truly over – but for Les Brown , that idea never got going ! Since moving to Sandown in the early 1970s , he ’ s taken on a mindboggling range of jobs , and put his heart and soul into all of them .
A gregarious northerner with that classic straight-talking and nononsense approach , he ’ s become well known to many on the Island for his good humour and can-do attitude .
It seemed that Les Brown ’ s life was all mapped out for him at 16 , when he left school and donned a miner ’ s helmet for his first job , at the Langwith Colliery in Derbyshire .
His father had worked in the mine , his grandfather had been killed there - and Les himself recalls how just two weeks into his new job , he witnessed a fatally-injured colleague ’ s body being carried out . “ Everyone just carried on eating their food ” he says . “ I suppose that death down there was so common , it was just a part of life ”. But the life of a coal miner was not to be Les ’ s for long , because a fateful decision by some of his relatives to move to the Isle of Wight in the late 1960s saw his whole life path change . Les , then aged around 20 , decided to make the move with them , not knowing what work he would do , but relishing the chance to make a fresh start . “ I ’ ve never been a snob when it came to what work I would do ” he says , “ so I was really prepared to roll up my sleeves and take on anything ”. His first job , as it turned out , was as a labourer , employed on the building of the sea wall between Sandown and Shanklin – probably as far removed a working environment as you could ever get from that of a dark and damp coal mine ! Bouyed by the fresh air and open skies , and working in harmony with the
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