When Coal was King

[Wheldale]

When Coal was King, Monday night (4th Nov) on BBC 4 at 9pm. Might be a decent program?

[dazbt]

deleted double post, sorry.

[dazbt]

as an aside;


A Darker King

Nineteen sixties, sat in power
For a decade now as king of the tower.
All knelt before this sovereign throne
Industries and commerce lying prone.
Centuries of cruel exile finally ended,
Welcomed by subjects arms extended.

Ruling with tolerance, never greed.
But now awaiting the fruit of this seed.
The Prince Apparent in a different frame
Reared in the search for ancient blame.
Armies unsettled with the king of old,
Whispers of avarice, a new taste of gold.

Changing times and counsel too,
Soothe sayers gone now generals new.
Altered worlds thrown into reverse,
Foreign relations once so terse
Now are allied to the king’s own mentors,
With thoughts of money saving ventures.

Trojan horses of foreign steel,
Oil to stabilise a troubled keel.
All were threats to our Monarch Black
Deals were sealed no turning back.
The way forward from those days on
Written in the light of a rising sun.

Hereupon the King’s fate was sealed,
Wounds inflicted would never be healed.
Strangled and choked by commercial weight
Without consultation or honest debate.
King Coal exiled again in his own domain
Forty years tortured, finally dying in pain.

[shropshirebloke]

Thanks for the heads up Wheldale but...I wish I'd just stuck with Daz's poem. I know the old "Mining Review" films (especially the ones from the 50s and 60s) could have a somewhat patronising tone - pitmen away from work were treated like some exotic species (think David Attenborough meeting gorillas), but at least they showed people at work and new developments - none of that was shown in the programme.

Instead there were brief contributions from two (possibly three) ex-miners, and endless vacuous crap from talking heads (I was expecting Steven Fry to pop up any minute). I lost count of the mentions of 'Ewan MacColl' - the fake Irish/Scottish folk singer/actor/writer (real name James Henry Miller, born in Manchester - never had a proper job in his life).

There was a short burst of 'Gresford' - 'The Miner's Hymn' in the background, but no mention of why it was written - by an ex-miner, Robert Saint, to commemorate the Gresford disaster.

Loved the bit where two former miner's wives were going on about having to get their men's clothes clean and dry ready for the next shift - mine only went home at holidays when we had to clear our lockers out - they used to leave piles of dirt bags by the dirty lockers for the occasion.

Typical middle-class BBC sh*te - I was just waiting for Tony Benn to pop up and tell us how "I shpent many happy hoursh down our local pit in Hampshtead, shmoking my pipe and being admired by theshe shimple, shalt of the earth working chapsh, who inshtinctively recognished me ash the great chap that I am".

On the other hand, I have got the BFI DVDs of Mining Review and they're great viewing - "The Lambton Worm" is brilliant!

[John]

I'd like to have watched that...

I like most in the 60's wore my pit rags until the rotted off my back, we couldn't have had much of a sense of smell back then...LOL Funny how we could smell someone peeling an orange half a mile up wind of us, but couldn't smell out own BO.... I did change my socks once a week though with a brand new pair...All the old ones were in the bottom of my dirty locker..

[colly0410]

I've recorded this, I'll get round to watching it sometime, I'll let you know what I think..

[tygwyn]

I do agree,it was`nt up to much,

But in fairness,the 2 ladies talking about drying their husbands cloths,were before they had baths at the Colliery,something i`ve done many times when there were no baths in Smallmines.

A new pair of socks each week?did`nt realise Sparkies sweated much,lol

The worse part of that program was the mention of 62 deaths in 1958,very poor research,thats only a 1/5 of the total for that year.

[John]

Feet got very sweaty, lots of walking in a pit that's nearly 100 years old, 6.5 miles to the farthest district inbye, and try walking that off an afternoon shift when both bunkers are full and all the belts are standing.....
I reckon some of the lads set some world records in walking speeds...
The hardest part was the Stone Head drift to pit bottom, 3/4 mile....Heart would be pounding a bit by the time we got to pit bottom....

[Mick]

It was the biggest load of crap,all they did was cobble a load of bits from other programmes that i had already seen.And like most of you i never tuck me pit cothes home me mother would have killed me what with me dad me and me brother,as for scoks i washed them everyday just never tuck them off when i went for a shower.
Mick.

[John]

Never thought of that one Mick, washing me socks in the showers...

When I started in the NSW coal industry in late 1979, I worked at a pit near the coast called Wongawilli, Aborigine for "windy place" or so I was informed.
The shower block was similar to UK bath design but had extras like laundry tubs so the blokes could hand wash their work clothes, seems it was a feature of the older collieries...Never used them, just took my dirty clothes home at the end of the week and washed them myself there.

Unlike the NCB pits, it was mandatory under the coal mines Act for colliery companies to provide bathing facilities, went back to the coal mines Act of 1913, so they were light years ahead of us in mine welfare for workers.

[shropshirebloke]

We had a bloke who came out the pit, had a shower, then put his pit clothes back on to go home. He was banned from the pit bus after a few complaints - we called him 'Scarecrow' for some reason...

The same bloke lived in a private house with gas-fired central heating - used to have his concessionary coal delivered - shoved it into a bunker in the back of his garage and used to sell it at so much a bag. He never got caught.

[colly0410]

Eventually got round to watching it: What a load of patronising tosh, they talked about us as though we were some form of lower life, seemed surprised that we had a life outside the pit. I've erased it from my hard disc recorder, not worth taking up the disc space..

[John]

Not sure if I've posted this before, but we had an old Irishman who worked on the screens, he was banned from the baths too, he'd get showered and use newspaper to dry himself....His heels were ditched with dirt, he was warned a couple of times by the bath attendants to clean up his act or else...Manager after many complaints told him the baths and changing areas were off limits to him eventually.

I'd left the industry in 1968, when I got married we lived two doors down from a Cotgrave bath attendant...A couple of years passed and I found out he'd been sacked and prosecuted, seemed he'd take the spare keys when the shift had gone underground and help himself to the blokes valuables.
Eventually Management set a trap to catch the thief, which led them to the bath attendant, who was sent home for his own safety after being charged with theft....A fair amount of the men at Cotgrave were Geordies and Scots, they would have lynched him.

[erichall]

Only remember this happening once around one of the areas I worked. The thief turned out to be an underground outbye worker, who was, as we considered naturally and just, sacked on the spot. This made the local news channel on the box (must have been a slow day for news) and there seemed to be muchsympathy for 'the poor chap, who had only taken something out of a PHB locker'. The Manager who sacked him was given quite a rough time by the press, and I was asked by a member of the public if I didn't think the Chap deserved a second chance, and that the Manager was acting like a dictator. They seemed rather surprised when I said he was lucky that it was the Manager who dealt with it and not his workmates.
They didn't seem to understand that the man was stealing from his own mates, and had been taking another man's hard-earned wages.
Few men I knew left anything really valuable in their lockers, but a man's locker was sacrosanct.

[John]

Nov 8, 2013 12:35:29 GMT -5 erichall said:

Only remember this happening once around one of the areas I worked. The thief turned out to be an underground outbye worker, who was, as we considered naturally and just, sacked on the spot. This made the local news channel on the box (must have been a slow day for news) and there seemed to be muchsympathy for 'the poor chap, who had only taken something out of a PHB locker'. The Manager who sacked him was given quite a rough time by the press, and I was asked by a member of the public if I didn't think the Chap deserved a second chance, and that the Manager was acting like a dictator. They seemed rather surprised when I said he was lucky that it was the Manager who dealt with it and not his workmates.
They didn't seem to understand that the man was stealing from his own mates, and had been taking another man's hard-earned wages.
Few men I knew left anything really valuable in their lockers, but a man's locker was sacrosanct.

It's the safest thing the Manager could do, knowing lads I worked with, had he not been sacked he'd have got the hiding of his life when no officials were around, either U/G or in the bathroom. I remember payday, afternoon shift lockers would have been good pickings!!!

[rob52]

For those that have not seen it.....
WKwK Prt1
WKwK Prt2
WKwK Prt3
WKwK Prt4

Make your own mind up.

Rob

[tygwyn]

An alternative view,

[John]

Nov 13, 2013 3:41:36 GMT -5 rob52 said:

For those that have not seen it.....
WKwK Prt1
WKwK Prt2
WKwK Prt3
WKwK Prt4

Make your own mind up.

Rob

Interesting, I've seen a couple of mining reviews on Youtube, can't say I saw any in the cinemas though, they were after all mostly propaganda...

[John]

I was sent some DVD's from Jim in Canada, "Nobody's Face" Lord Roben's narrates it, made in the early 60's as internal propaganda to get our butts into gear....TBH, working on faces under the old PLA, ie contracts, the video really didn't make a deal of sense, I'm sure the money those blokes were making, had they broke down, they have pushed the shearer through the face physically to get a couple more shears... Another was "Forty Years On", "9's Was Standing" and a home made one "Pyehill Colliery"

I had to laugh at the shearer driver in "Nobody's Face", the drivers I knew would have been screaming if the AFC stopped too often as would the face Overman, this bloke was civilized though, sounds like a Barnsley accent...

[colly0410]

Talking about shouting face crew... I was doing button man for a stage loader & face panzer when the gate belt stopped, I shouted "gate belt standing" on the tannoy, they chuntered as though it was my fault, what did they expect ME to do?

[John]

Nov 13, 2013 17:54:03 GMT -5 colly0410 said:

Talking about shouting face crew... I was doing button man for a stage loader & face panzer when the gate belt stopped, I shouted "gate belt standing" on the tannoy, they chuntered as though it was my fault, what did they expect ME to do?

I take it they were on bonus? Amazing what incentives make...

[rob52]

Nov 13, 2013 5:21:49 GMT -5 tygwyn said:

An alternative view,

Hmm private mine employing <30 people?

A few interesting videos here:
Britishpathe.com

Working and haulage methods further advanced in BlackDiamonds 1932.
than your "alternative view"

Interesting.
John Darling Colliery, Australia 1925-1987 was using pit ponies in the late 1960s

Rob

[John]

Nov 14, 2013 8:19:06 GMT -5 rob52 said:

Nov 13, 2013 5:21:49 GMT -5 tygwyn said:

An alternative view,

Hmm private mine employing <30 people?

A few interesting videos here:
Britishpathe.com

Working and haulage methods further advanced in BlackDiamonds 1932.
than your "alternative view"

Interesting.
John Darling Colliery, Australia 1925-1987 was using pit ponies in the late 1960s

Rob

There is a NSW photo archive of the coal industry of NSW, I'll have to look for it, I thought I had it bookmarked, but it contains thousands of surface and underground photos of dozens of NSW collieries over the last 100 plus years.
Some excellent photos of NSW coal mining, machines and methods.