Welsh Coal Mines

[cleanerg6e]

I was reading on the web on a site dedicated to the coal mining industry in South Wales.

Blimey!. This bloke said that some have said that the Welsh were so lucky to have such rich and abundant coal seams. But this bloke (an ex coal miner) said it was a curse. There was an explosion in a pit in the 1860's which killed 146 men and boys and the owner was said that the disaster had cost him dearly in the loss of 28 pit ponies at 1000 pounds. Nothing about the human cost. The mining ruined so many lives and yet there was nothing else to keep people in the valleys employed.

The pit closures of the 1980's left many in total limbo. A whole way of life just wiped out. Yes Maggie Thatcher went after the miners. She intended to defeat the NUM by having a large surplus supply of coal so people would have heating and not turn against the government. Scargil took the bate and had an unauthorised strike which split the NUM and the rest is history.

This site made fascinating reading.

http://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/

[TheQ]

To say Maggie Thatcher intended to defeat the miners by having a huge stock of coal is stretching the truth a bit. The massive over production by the coal industry with no one to sell it to was hardly her fault.

It should be pointed out the year before the strike Scargill held a national ballot for strike and it was voted down they Knew they had coal sitting around unsold.

The strike year he held a pit by pit strike in which the majority of miners did not vote for a strike but he used those pits that voted for the strike to try to closed down those which didn't. hardly a democratic choice.

President for life Scargill had announced to the world he was going to bring down the government another non democratic move. He and his avowed communist deputy Mick macgahey ( now thought to have been a spy for Russia) took money from gadafii and the soviet union to help pay for the strike neither country could be said to have the UK's interests at heart.

I would point out I have relatives who were miners, including some still buried in a pit in Staffordshire.