Death of Mabel Comerford, widow of mining legend Jim Comerford

Paddy Gorman, editor of the miners’ union journal Common Cause, said Mrs Comerford died peacefully on Monday night in Wagga Wagga, surrounded by her family.

Mr Comerford rose to become a senior figure in the post-WWII miners’ union and as a teenager on the coalfields took part in the famous Rothbury lockout confrontation of 1929.

Mr Comerford’s biographer, Barbara Heaton, said Mabel’s father was a miner who died when she was a girl.

Ms Heaton said Mabel and Jim had been “childhood sweethearts” who married young and spent a long and happy life together.