Raymond Williams’ concept of “structure of feelings” with particular reference to the residual form, underpins experiences of deindustrialization in the embodiment of industry, gendering identities, and community values. This is a complex relationship between work, health, community and culture, where working life reached beyond the coalface. This article analyzes the significance of these interconnecting factors through the oral history accounts of former miners and residents within the Kent Coalfield. In drawing on Williams’ concept of “structure of feelings” with particular reference to “residual culture,” it reveals how ill-health was seen as “remarkable” and “traumatic,” yet equally “unremarkable” and “normal.” Having recognized the expectant inevitability of these issues, the discussion focuses on a particular understanding of community culture, social interactions and memories within the context of health and illness, which highlights the centrality embodiment in understanding deindustrialization as a process of change.

The activism of coalmining unions in Australia, the UK, the USA and elsewhere securing improvements in safety including better legislation in the 19th and 20th centuries, has been widely researched and acknowledged. However, a relatively neglected aspect of this history was a campaign to secure worker inspectors (check-inspectors). These began in coalmining a century before similar measures were introduced for workers more generally as part of overhauling occupational health and safety laws in the 1970s/1980s. We document this struggle for mine safety in Australia and New Zealand, and the activities of check-inspectors in the period to 1925. Notwithstanding strong opposition from coal-owners and conservative governments, check-inspectors played an important role in safeguarding coalminers and improving the regulatory oversight of coalmines. Check-inspectors not only gave coalminers a ‘voice’ in OHS, but they also provided an exemplar of the value and legitimacy of worker’s ‘knowledge activism’. This system remains. Furthermore, the struggle is relevant to understanding contemporary debates about collective worker involvement in occupational health and safety.