National coal mining museum

Remember Mick that Wilson closed more mines that Maggie.

However much I would like to see our coal being used I wouldn't like to be the man saying to others that they must go underground to get it for me.

I am however always glad that these museums are kept alive in memory of those who went before us.

Maggie is not well liked in South Wales

Sorry, shouldn't have started this but the facts only support one conclusion, **LINK**, none of us like the end result but that does not change the numbers.

Now we know all the dangers of deep mined coal and the risks to health would it be possible to open a mine today?

The tradegy to me seems to be the destruction of the communities surrounding the industry but does anyone really want to send people deep underground just to get something we are going to burn and add more problems for our planet to deal with. Mining is not the only industry that has had its day as a mass employer, when I started work at the Cowley car factory it employed 28,000 people and no robots now there are about 4500 people and 1,300 robots. Luckily the transformation of the car industry has been fairly gentle and the people have gone to other jobs. The mining closures were fairly sudden and very little in the way of other jobs materialised in the short term so the impact on the communities was massive. Coal being a fossil fuel must be facing a worldwide decline in demand as we face up to problems for our planet related to fossil fuel.

Mike

Ì went to the mining museum a couple of years ago. Parking and entrance were free. The underground tour cost £3 for a check disc which was refundable or you could keep as a souvenir. Extremely good day out for free although we donated to the museum.

I never new i came from a mining background until i was researching the family history and found my great great great grandfather on the in memoriam list of miners that had been killed in pit accidents on the Durham mining museum website. . My father never mentioned it or any of his family for that matter.

It's not only mining but the cotton and wool industries that have gone. Since last year there isn't even a museum to them either at least not in Lancashire

Roy

Re the above I believe there is the Barncroft mill up in Barnoldswick that still runs as a small museum to the cotton industry.

The trouble with closing the mines was, that that was usually the only industry in the community

Roy

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article and it brought back a few memories. I worked for the NCB at Compower, its computing arm. We process all the payroll, personell records etc. I worked in the Mining and Technical department and worked on programs which reported on Face Delays., i.e. what time had been lost due to breakdown etc. In order to have an appreciation of what went on underground we had to attend a 3 week underground mining course. This entailed a number of lectures and a lot of time spent touring round various collieries spending a lot of time underground.

I can remember vividly crawling along a line of powered supports only a few feet away from the coal cutter machine. This was in a 2ft 6" high seam so not a lot of space between the base and the upper support. Another time heard a huge bang as they blasted a heading and felt the shockwave and face-full of coal dust. One of the things they did whilst underground was to take us into an unlit area and then get us to switch off our headlamps. This is real darkness, you cannot see a hand in front of your face. The man-riding conveyors were also interesting. Lying face down on a heavy rubber belt and travelling quite a way reasonably quickly and with very weird feeling as passed over the conveyor rollers. The speed of descent in the cages certainly left your stomach behind as your rapidly dropped to bottom of the mine. I must admit I never really felt worried whilst down below but it certainly was a hostile environment.

Colin

I thought it was Arthur Scargill calling an illegal strike at a time when stock piles of coal at power stations were high and many mines starting to become uneconomical to work due to thin seams and falling reserves and high costs that killed the mining industry. Whilst i know the use of coal has fallen recently there were years after the closure of all the mines when the amount of coal being mined in the UK was higher before the strike. Sheer economics mean there is no way anyone is going to mine 450mm seams of coal, hand picked by a man on his side in South Wales (although the bloke who I knew who worked this way apparentely enjoyed it) when there are 3m Seams stretching for miles in Queensland that can be mined by machine.

There are still many small OCCS in South Wales, on the north crop. I myself used to work on one 15 years ago (and you didn't mention Mrs Thatcher there!).

An Uncle would lay on His stomach laying on a cart , and pull a small railway cart along about 1/4 mile deep in a mine tunnel that was 18 inches high. He would then pick and shovel about 500 lbs. into the cart and push it back out for collection. Another Uncle said He would not go any smaller than 24" high. This was day off work from another job for .50 cents a cart load. Another story from another Guy was His Dad loading railroad cars with another Man with shovels. The coal was dumped onto a platform where they shoveled, threw and pushed the coal into the car. If the coal did not scrape a timber along the whole length of the car it was considered not full and They were not paid for it. They parked their shovels in a barrel of water to cool off as evidently it heated up in use. Life in the Colonies.

There was an error in my original post, corrected in capitals

I thought it was Arthur Scargill calling an illegal strike at a time when stock piles of coal at power stations were high and many mines starting to become uneconomical to work due to thin seams and falling reserves and high costs that killed the mining industry. Whilst i know the use of coal has fallen recently there were years after the closure of all the mines when the amount of coal being mined in the UK was higher THAN BEFORE the strike. Sheer economics mean there is no way anyone is going to mine 450mm seams of coal, hand picked by a man on his side in South Wales (although the bloke who I knew who worked this way apparentely enjoyed it) when there are 3m Seams stretching for miles in Queensland that can be mined by machine.

There are still many small OCCS in South Wales, on the north crop. I myself used to work on one 15 years ago (and you didn't mention Mrs Thatcher there!)

No sympathy here - I can remember 3 day working weeks and many power cuts caused by striking miners. While they were being simply greedy, I was losing money, not being able to work through lack of power - a 40% drop in earnings at a time in my life when I definitely could not afford it.
When they won, I don't remember them apologising to me or sympathising for my loss in earnings - all that happened was the price of fuel and power went upwards. This side is never aired in historical accounts - all I hear is "the poor miners!"