Description
It was a Marion 7500 dragline. It worked 24 hours a day, through all weather conditions: only fog could stop it. It had no wheels or caterpillar tracks but it could actually walk, using giant hydraulic limbs to step backwards, four feet at a time. And it was right outside Gideon's house.
When his mother bought the cottage, they assured her that this dragline would be pulling out very soon. But no one in the Council office said anything about the extension. And there it was, still digging for coal, working all day, all night. It was like living in a science fiction fantasy world, where berserk armies of snarling, jerking machinery were laying waste to the entire planet, accompanied by the thunderous clash of the giant bucket on the Marion 7500 walking dragline.
This gripping novel, set in north-east England, tells how ordinary people face up to the noise and pollution of open-cast mining.
ISBN:9780192716637
