Lancashire.

[John]

Colliery remains in Lancashire.

[John]

Astley Green Colliery in Manchester.

www.manchester2002-uk.com/history/victorian/mining-museums.html

[andyexplorer]

Hi Astley Green is just down the road from me , it's really worth a visit just to see the size of the winding engine
apparently the biggest Twin tandem compound engine ever used in the Lancashire coal fields
I believe there used to be two of these run by a bank of 16 Lancashire boilers ,the other one unfortunately succumbing to the demolition and scrap man
the second engine house and headstock also have gone
This monster engine is still run once a month by connecting it to air compressors . they also have the largest collection of underground railway engines in Britain 29 i think and lots of other oddments of mining memorabilia
this is a video of this huge engine (not working)when this was saved back in the 70's the preservation order arrived just as the demolition had started to knock the engine house down . Phew !

[andyexplorer]

Hi i'm not a miner , but have a great interest in the subterranean world most of you worked in
i saw on another site a group has been formed called "The Irwell valley mining project" focusing mainly on Agecroft but also on the many other mines along the valley They have secured heritage lottery fund funding and have made some short films for You tube
They have also built a permanent monument to all the miners that worked at Agecroft, the unveiling of which was attended by several ex miners from the pit I found it strange than not one person apart from myself responded to their posts
after a quick bit of research i realised that Agecroft colliery voted to carry on working through the miners strike
My question to you is , did they carry on working through the whole year + of the strike or did they see sense and come out ?
and if not will the memory of Agecroft for ever be tarnished as a "scab pit" ?

Apologies if this is inaccurate and if so can the moderators remove it ?

[Clive]

Hi Andy.

I got a start at Agecroft after Hapton valley shut, though I never went as I went into the private mines instead. One lad I knew refused to come out because scargill told him to with out bothering to ask, and that was his beef. Bare in mind Hapton valley had been closed down in 82 and nobody, not even the union, gave a monkeys. So you have to factor that in to the equation. That is one of the reasons I left for the private mines as i reckoned i was better off fighting my own battles.

I know some of the valley lads came out as I remember them collecting funds in Rawtenstall on saturdays.

I would think most on this forum are a bit more reasonable than those on others and can see that the strike was not always that streight forward, as can be said about all things.

maybe your lack of turn out was down to lack of publicity. Also quite a lot have died since the place shut.

[andyexplorer]

Hi clive thanks for the reply it's ironic that you mention Hapton Valley as just this afternoon i have aquired the Ministry of power government report into the Hapton Valley Explosion 22/3/62 along with a few others very detailed complete with full colour plans of the mine , haulage roads , ventilation and a plan of the mine after the explosion etc
As for Agecroft , i used to play there as a kid (nobody really bothered back then) we would play on the shunting engines and the wagon's etc quite a few miners lived on the estate where i grew up , so it was always there and you always expected it to be
The demise of the industry is really sad and i think is behind a lot of the problems this country now faces , expensive power , decline of industry and manufacturing base etc

ATB Andy

[John]

Aug 13, 2013 16:11:02 GMT -5 Clive said:

Hi Andy.

I got a start at Agecroft after Hapton valley shut, though I never went as I went into the private mines instead. One lad I knew refused to come out because scargill told him to with out bothering to ask, and that was his beef. Bare in mind Hapton valley had been closed down in 82 and nobody, not even the union, gave a monkeys. So you have to factor that in to the equation. That is one of the reasons I left for the private mines as i reckoned i was better off fighting my own battles.

I know some of the valley lads came out as I remember them collecting funds in Rawtenstall on saturdays.

I would think most on this forum are a bit more reasonable than those on others and can see that the strike was not always that streight forward, as can be said about all things.

maybe your lack of turn out was down to lack of publicity. Also quite a lot have died since the place shut.

Pretty tolerant here Clive...LOL As long as we don't get a slagging match start, we do get people from all over the world as guests, plus women and kids dropping by.
We seem to have a good set of lads who post here who appreciate the fact this is an international forum and respect my wishes in keeping the site civilized and peaceful, and I thank everyone for that.

[Clive]

No worries John. Not intending to set off any controversy, and certainly no slanging match.

If you say anything against imigration you are labled a racist. If you say anything against the strike you are a scab.

I was never against the strike. I voted to strike in 81. The hit list was done away with except for hapton valley and Victoria. Nobody was interested, we were just left to go down the plug hole.

History needs to be written correctly with all the facts. Why did some strike and some not? It was mostly down to principles and money. Some didn't want to strike because they thought they were in safe pits and could make plenty of money.

Those who struck were motivated by principles and a will to protect their livlyhood. That has been a basic human principle since the founding of the world. But others declined to strike because of principles, like stated above. Me? Well I would have struck if I had been in the NCB. But back in 81 you could see the writing on the wall. Well at least you could in lancashire as the industry had already been decimated.

A wise man looks at both sides of an argument. When leaders want men to follow, what is the motivation of the leader? The good of the people or his/ her own good. I think if we honestly look back on the two protaganists; Thatcher and Scargill, they both wanted to feather their own nest.

When it came to hey lads hey, only the lads from Tower colliery bought their own pit. How many pits did any of the unions buy when it was plain for all to see that' like it or not' privatisation was going to happen. That's why I went into the private mines because the owner had everything riding on that pit and if it went so did his house and life savings. Some people are willing to back their principles with their last penny.

It's about time the subject could be discussed by reasonable men with out being labled either 'scabs' or 'the comunist enamy within'.

But hey, here's another forum where nobody will talk to me any more. At least those studants from other countries looking in and doing historic research should be given a chance to learn the truth.

By the way Andy I looked at the Irwell Valley youtube stuff. Well done. Enjoyed seeing where the old pits used to be, especialy Clifton (pendalebury). It was a deep hole for the time it was sunk and from what I can remember the shafts were only 8' or 10' diamiter.

The one good thing about going for a job at Agecroft was the free beer in the Pendlebury miners afterwards.

[John]

There's plenty of good reliable information now that shows up in a search, amazing how much has been leaked from government sources too. There's a communist "rag" where they stayed on course for a change and put the best reasons why the miners were beaten, if memory serves me right, the author even admits that if the strike had been 100% unanimous the end would still have turned out the same, but may have taken longer, ie the coal industry decimated.. Not only politics were involved but the bottom line would have been pits that couldn't make a profit.

I worked for both sides of the industry in Australia, first with a large corporation, AI&S a subsidiary of BHP Pty Ltd and secondly for a new colliery owned by the NSW government, even the pits within that group still had to be profitable. We had that pointed out to us many many times, if we wanted to stay open and keep the power station contracts, we had to produce coal cheaper than the privately owned collieries.

Ironic, the government collieries were set up to supply coal to the government power stations, but in good times, private enterprise didn't want a look in on the power station contracts, they just wanted the lucrative export market, which we were forbidden to enter.
But as soon as exports slacked off, or international coal prices dropped, the private pits started looking at power station contracts, so we HAD to produce coal cheaper than those pits. They would not try and compete with our prices, and we were not subsidized either!

I recall one incident with one of the private mines near Lithgow, we had just changed our face equipment from the old 400HP shearer to a 500HP shearer, from Gullick shields to Dowty shields, plus new AFC/Stage Loader, switchgear and transformers etc... The whole old face package sat on the surface stacked up ready for offers to purchase it.
One company, who owned Baal Bone Colliery just east of Lithgow blackmailed the NSW government that if it couldn't get the face it was going to close it's Baal Bone colliery and make everyone redundant... I know what I would have done, "Do that and we will cancell ALL your mining leases in NSW"

But no, they caved in and handed it to them on a plate....
Incidentally, Baal Bone was a fairly new colliery, in 1981 their men were earning over $A1000 a week!! Over $A600 of that was production bonus, the mine exported all coal, transported from the pit to the coal loader in Port Kembla south of Wollongong.

It's sad though to see not just one industry decimated, but several due to a governments short sightedness. The UK's mining machine manufacturing industry being one, repair shops who relied heavily on NCB/BC work, which in turn cost thousands of youngsters the chance of apprenticeships and skilled work.

[dazbt]

Very well said Brother Clive, it is time that all sides affected and involved in the "within living memory coal strikes" were given a fair hearing and by that I would mean all sides, not just strikers and their families, or so called scabs and theirs, the media manipulators, police, politicians biased either way and so called union leaders but all the others who played their part and suffered or profited from these actions and reactions, there has never been a time so adequately served as to enable the true documentation of happenings as they should be truthfully recorded, not that I'm confident that those with lesser voices will ever be listened to either now or in the distant future.

"But hey, here's another forum where nobody will talk to me any more"

I for one will always find time to talk to you Clive, as far as I'm concerned you've been there, done that, earned the tee-shirt as well as the right to speak about it and pick up a reply in response.

[Clive]

Cheers Daz

If you are still intersted in mining songs, Bellowhead have done a version of Byker Hill on their new album, but the jury's still out on that one.

There's a country singer called Chriss knight. he used to be a strip mine survayor in Kentucky. A lot of his songs have mining references. ceck out 'train not running' and crooked road. he's pretty gritty.

[Mick]

I went to Agecroft in the strike and remember the men saying they would not go down that day we were there,wish i could remember the date but its gone.
Anyway after we left they all went down but we never went back,at my pit Wheldale we had a few that went back forgot how many now,but i remember the first day shift after the strike the scabs came in the bathes and all the lights went out there was a right battle and the management locked the scabs in a office for there safety,after that day not one scab worked at Wheldale ever again.
I still see a few of them in town but would never talk to them.
Mick.

[tygwyn]

"But hey, here's another forum where nobody will talk to me any more"

That`s the difference between the English and the Welsh Clive,

You say,But hey,we say Hey butt,lol

Shocked to see that line from you Clive,always noticed a conversation going on when you have been here,
Also when you have joined us on the Welsh coalmines forum,although it is a more militant site in general,

There ain`t many of us on these forums that worked in Smallmines,every time i speak to someone i find out someone i worked with is dead,and not much older than myself,

So hey up butt,there`s empties to fill.

[Clive]

Aye just me being paranoid tygwym, yes your right, some on the welsh site some are a little to the left of Lennin politicaly. And I understand it's a bit of a firey subject. I know what you mean about everybody dieing. They all die or put on weight, self included. I went down Ayle the other week with some friends from london and my 12 year old reckons he want's to be a miner. I wondered how many I could hew these days, wouldn't mind a try but the thought of having to fill 20 tonne and coming home with about £250 dont inspire no more.

Interesting Mick's story about picketing Agecroft. hapton valley also got picketed. You cant see the pit from the main road, it's about quater mile up the pit rd from the main Burnley to Accrington road. The pickets were there a while and never encountered a soul till a young lad cycled past on his bmx and told them it had been shut 2 years.

Hapton was shut basicaly to man up Agecroft when they opened up that new big didtrict through the CAT. from talking to mates they never intergrated and were always known as 'Burnley @@@$$$d's'.

I know quite a lot of the Burnley men struck, as I say they would be collecting down Rawtenstall on a weekend. We had one or 2 come to the private mines just for some brass, but there was only one, who had gone to Golbourn, who was any good.

My last job at the valley was stripping out monorail from rise 2, to get there you traveled part way up the old explosion road. I know the official report blames silver paper but some of those involed begged to differ, I suppose nobody knows for sure. When we were apprentices, one of the trainees in our years, well his dad had been in the explosion and survived, he was a filler at the time of the blast. I remember on the way to Old Boston one morning the subject being discussed and straight away he corrected us and said it was down to shotfiring and stemming with coal dust. We will never know as all those involved were killed. The blast occured straight after shots were fired for sure as one whitness at the bottom of the rise said that the air doors opened when the shots whent off, then seconds later they were blown off by the explosion.

Enjoy your read Andy (if enjoy is the right word) jack Nadin has written a book about it look it up. Also if you are inteested, do some research on the Gresford explosion. I'm sure I once read a book on ot as well as the official enquirey. The re opening using only rescue men is also very interesting and I read a paper on the subject by one of the rescue men

[Clive]

By the way Daz that chris knoght song is called 'the sound of a train not running


is crooked road

[andyexplorer]

"Enjoy your read Andy (if enjoy is the right word"

Hi Clive , i do enjoy reading those sort of things , it puts a whole new light on the plight of miners , not just in recent times but more so the horrors of the past,and just why the bond between them was and is so strong , and why they would feel such betrayal by those who in their eyes broke that bond of solidarity (on both sides)
Only by reading the bad stuff can you bring into perspective , why miners felt they were a special case and i m h o rightly so
Nothing like the run of the mill stuff you read and see in the media
And only through people like you do we ever get to the truth , those who were there and who were directly involved and who have an opinion
which should be expressed
Also i agree it should be discussed and documented from all points of view because history should see things from all angles , so people in the future can form opinions of their own

[Clive]

andy, have you read the history of the northumberland and durham miners by richard fines? It's a must and I'm sure you would enjoy it. t was re printed a while ago but you might be able to get it through the library

It tells the story of the brith of the unions and of the early strikes to get rid of the yearly bond and get check weitghmen ect. The struggle to get proper inquests into the disasters and eye whitness acounts of some of the major explosions in the countys.

[dazbt]

Thanks for the music links Clive, I've not heard of the guy before. Does any sort of similar mining related songs fit into your repertoire, not quite the traditional folk style stuff, but maybe something that might be accepted and appreciated in some coal mining area clubs?

[Clive]

Ni daz don't do any of chris's stuff. He's usualy a bit more upbeat, but I realy like him. he's starting to break in on the country scean a lot more, though I hope he will never be main stream, he can't half tell a good tale though. Check out 'framed' and 'jack blue'.

Don't do the clubs these days Daz, I just love window cleaning so much Seriously, our Sam is 14 and Jud 12; I was going out on sat night and leaving them at home to go to some scottish drinking pit where they didn't always apreciate my Englishness. I got to thinking that they wouldn't be kids for much longer, so would sooner spend my sat nights with them, especialy during the summer here in the lakes. Now and again I still get out my guitar and have a private warble...black leg miner, coal hole cavalry, byker hill ect...Gota keep it real bro

[andyexplorer]

"andy, have you read the history of the northumberland and durham miners by richard fines"?

Hi Clive , no i haven't but ill look out for a copy