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William John ‘Chopper’ Davies was born in Nantyglo in 1922. He left school at 14 to work in Beynon’s Colliery. He was working in Six Bells Colliery in 1960 when an explosion killed 45 men. He would have been among the dead but had worked overtime the night before and had taken the day off. He produced many works based on his experiences as a mineworker. In his auto biography ‘Blue Scars’, Chopper wrote ‘I am not a Lowry or a Picasso but I put the same passion into my paintings as they do …’ He died in 2006.