1900 2020 aberdare

[@jackhargreaves1911]

With hindsight, the black-gold rush that brought all these people (and a form of prosperity) to the valleys, was a fools paradise. Coal is a terrible, poisonous thing (I grew up in a mining town). It (and the steelworks) produced the most polluted places and damaged people in all of Europe. Then we had the inevitable come down. I will never forget the number of BOC vans touring the valleys in the 1970’s and 80’s, dropping off oxygen cylinders to all the men with silicosis and other terrible lung diseases. It was a hidden killer (and national scandal) because the men were sat in their front rooms, next to their cylinders, never going out. And when the pits closed, we were left with a major social problem. Sorry to bang on… but if children today could see the conditions underground they wouldn’t believe it. The heat. The dust. On your knees hacking away at the coal with pickaxes… One of my enduring memories of the 1980’s strikes was everyone getting a sun tan for the first time!

[@CaseyBerard-qv6bi]

So poverty and no hope and uselessness is better?

[@jimandmarypowell9783]

An interesting documentary of a town following the progression from industrial boom to bust.

[@roomullan3050]

Really annoying noise to accompany these pictures

[@suemac7536]

The music in wholey inappropriate, also most of the pictures have no information, where ,when. Left feeling disappointed.

[@burnersburners7117]

Music Is good, disappointed by you

[@carolynjones6524]

Dump

[@andrewbutler6477]

The town has changed a lot my late aunt lived in aberdare and spent loads of my childhood in the area being from Merthyr one thing that will always remember is the smell of the furnicite at abercwmboi was awful !!!