From a letter writtem by Mavis Trevithick (Woodland) about Flora Cooper's life.
Uncle Tom died from silicosis in the 50's or 60's (this of course could have been confused with TB in miners)

Tom Cooper born to Benjamin Cooper / Eva Cooper (Shepherd) on 25th June 1896 in Green Bottom 18 days after his father died on 7th June 1896. Lived around the Green Bottom / Littledean area up to the 1911 census. At some time after the 1911 census Eva and Tom (maybe some of the others children) moved to the Doncaster Area (Goldthorpe) where Tom met and married Ethel Bowen. Ethel and her family lived at 29 Victoria Street next door to Eva and her children at 27 Victoria Street, Goldthorpe. They moved like a lot of miners from the Forest of Dean to either Yorkshire or Wales mines when the mining in the forest was in decline in the late 1800's early 1900's. Ethel died 7th January 1950 and Tom on 21st March 1950 both aged 54 in Littledean and are buried in Littledean URC cemetery with Edward their son on the headstone, his ashes being interred in Truro Cornwall who died on 25th March 1981.

WHITEHORSE ROAD, WEST CROYDON, SURREY by Mavis Trevithick (Woodland), full text can be read under the Woodland pages on this site

I learned much later that the Coopers in Askern had also been living below the official poverty line though Uncle Tom was working as a miner. But they had been involved in the 1926 general strike for better pay and conditions, both of which were atrocious. But their leaders had let them down and caved in and the men, all over the country were treated cruelly. Roy’s father, also, was involved as a railwayman, and they were taken back to work a trickle at a time and gained nothing but punishment.

In Yorkshire, the family could not afford to have cooked dinner every day. The children were threatened not to tell us when we visited but because Mother sent a few shillings for our keep, Aunty managed to cook us all a dinner. The only thing I couldn’t understand was about her gravy. It was made with just flour and burnt sugar. She kept a special spoon in which to burn the sugar over the cooker. I used to watch her, fascinated, when she made it. The gravy tasted awful. We always had a Yorkshire pudding first, to fill us up I suppose. Both those parents died in their 50s, I would say from malnutrition.