HE had seen things no man should ever have to see - the twisted, scorched bodies of men and boys trapped in an underground mine blast.

As County Durham's mining rescue team captain, he camped at the site of the Easington Pit disaster of 1951 for two weeks, hoping for a sign of life from the thousands of tons of shattered rock below.

They found few signs of life - just a seemingly endless pile of bodies that eventually totalled 83.

In the days when working class men just got on with their lives after witnessing such horrors, Robert Young did just that - staying silent all his life, only reliving the nightmare when he approached his final days.

After 30 years of agony as emphysema and bronchitis slowly ate away at his quality of life, his dying wish was for his family to benefit from his misfortune - a wish for compensation that has yet to materialise, three years after his death from the diseases.

His daughter, Hilda Rishworth, from Darlington, said that, like tens of thousands of other miners seeking compensation, her father only wanted what is best for his family.

She said: "I didn't want to claim at all, but he insisted. He never believed in post mortems, but he insisted he had one when he died, just to get to the true cause of death."

Mr Young, who worked at Houghton-le-Spring Colliery from the age of 14, won a gold watch for his bravery during the Easington disaster, but was forced to retire aged 60, after contracting chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

Mrs Rishworth, 60, described the last three decades of her father's life, until his death at the age of 89.

"He could do nothing. He used to sit at the front door in all weathers, just to get some air into his lungs," she said.

"Dad could only walk by himself for about 50 yards, but mostly my husband pushed him round in a wheelchair, which he found very embarrassing - he was a proud man.

"He never talked about the disaster until near the end, for instance. He told my husband that he found men on machinery who just died as they stood there.

"There were men and boys with no skin on them - it had been blown off by the explosion. As the rescue team captain, that was the last disaster he ever worked on.

"He would not allow his two sons to work down the pit."

In the same week that Government ministers ruled out changing the system of reducing payments if ex-miners had been on benefits, the family's solicitor has no idea when the claim will be processed.

Chris Segovia said: "There is a blockage with claims, because there is a severe shortage of consultants at the DTI to assess them. Also, families of deceased miners are not top priority cases - living miners and their widows come before them.