Thunder

After some very hot days I have been woken at night by great claps of thunder.  When I was small my mother would say "It is only the Angels having their coal delivered"  I imagined our coalman with his horse and cart up there sonewhere emptying the coal sacks.  It was my job to count the empty sacks as he threw them on to the cart when he brought our coal.
When we lived by the Thames we would watch strings of barges carrying coal going up the river to Nine Elms where at the plant of the Gas Light and Coke Company the gas would be extracted and the resulting coke  piled up.  This latter would be collected by boys as valuable fuel  for free.   They would fill old prams and soap boxes on wheels.  This all stopped when we started to use natural gas from the North Sea.