Coal Mining | Coal Crisis | South Wales | Merthyr Tydfil | 1973

[@fredonions2523]

Terrible to hear that guy say his brother took a week to die. My grandfather took much longer. Bloody awful to see your loved ones suffering so much. GOD BLESS THE MINERS!

[@gsbealer]

My Mum was born in Blaenavon. My grandfather and his family were miners to the bone. One of my great aunts’ husband was killed in the mines and because she had something like 13 children she was forced to go down the mines herself to keep food on the table.

[@michaelbritton9778]

When they took the pits away some people say best thing that ever happened oh yes we got lovely green fields and no tips we also have a load of empty shop's pubs shut no one socialises anymore they also took our steel industry railways I can go on this country is gone

[@michaelbritton9778]

@Joe Owens .yes I do I live right near what was our local collery Areal / Griffin or Six _ Bells Abertillery

[@michaelbritton9778]

@Joe Owens that's ok Joe was there anything else I could be of help with on this subject thanks again young man

[@michaelbritton9778]

@Joe Owens That's something that hasn't crossed my mind but now you mentioned it that's not a bad idea Joe I don't think they would be able to open any of the old pits and our steel industry in Ebbw Vale has been completely reformed I'll maybe give your subject some thought. Anyway good luck with that all the best

[@althomas3168]

I worked at Six Bells demolition.. there’s a video of it on YT.. sad really.

[@richardevans7035]

Agree I was a kid in the 80s and you didn't have to leave the village to get what you want , the pits closed and the pubs, shops and community spirit have all gone and the communitys of South Wales are finished, the only bitter point of coal that it wiped out all the children in Aberfan

[@typicalexpat4670]

From 5:10 - "what made me get out was watching my brother die. it took him a week to die. four bottles of oxygen a day and they couldn't take off his mask to give him a tablet for the pain even. So I decided to get out of the mines then, while I could" Reporter: "Sounds terrible. So was it JUST the money that made you want to leave the mines then...?" "Errrr..."

[@grahamnimmo4656]

I thought that when i heard it. Sounds like a political agenda by the reporter to avoid talking about the health and safety breaches and make it all about recruitment for hoover

[@pauljohn6637]

Yes, it was 1973. Alwyn Lloyd was a good snooker player, and the film was shot at Abertysswg Working Men's Club where he lived. In fact where I grew up. Most of those people would be 80 + years of age now. I left South Wales in 1984, most of my friends worked in the pits throughout the valley's.

[@lukejames5467]

I never got to meet Alwyn but have always been told how great of a snooker player he was and in fact I have the privilege of playing for the same clubs that he played for which are the Abertysswg Working Men's for Rhymney league and Merthyr Labour club for the Merthyr league. Even though I haven't been around long enough to know all about the life of working in the pits, it has always fascinated me to learn this kind of history.

[@pauljohn6637]

@@lukejames5467 Hi Luke. We used to go to Merthyr Labour club lunchtime when I was in Merthyr Tech. Howard Winston would frequently be there. A very high standard of snooker in Abertysswg and all the valleys back then. Wayne Jones was probably the best known player from Abertysswg, Doug Mountjoy practiced there regularly. There was a documentary filmed in Aber club with Terry Griffiths, I was there that night, early eighties.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇺🇸

[@burnleyfan11965]

Very good video that captures a time now past,But back then the end of coal would have been unthinkable.

[@johnmulvey5121]

What a tragedy about the mining industry. One thing that is noticeable about this film is how smartly dressed and slim most of the working class looked in those days

[@southsudani983]

most ppl allover were slim, now days a lot of ppl are fat and ppl glorify the idea of obesity

[@timwebster8122]

The work even that in factory's like Hoover was much more physical

[@johnmulvey5121]

That's right.@@timwebster8122

[@shaunmarriott2918]

I'm not from a mining community but remember the strikes. Most of the UK hadn't the right, truthful information to understand (or care about) what was happening and the ideology behind the closure of the coal mines. There was no investment in the communities who were left without jobs, food, security and the rest, they had little chance to retrain or use existing skills, they were just left to fend for themselves. Thatcher hated the unions, as, well as the workers, and her government of the day wasn't prepared to invest in a transition for the communities once the mines and steelworks had been destroyed. The Tories also stockpiled masses quantities of imported coal to beat the miners' strikes and keep power stations running.

[@TomBartram-b1c]

"I don't think the miners will ever be in a better bargaining position than they are today" (1973) God, how true!

[@hackedoff736]

I grew up in the Kent coalfield where many of the miners ended up from South Wales, Scotland and Durham (some Yorkshire and Staffordshire) after being blacklisted for union activities in the 26 strike. They all kept their accents and traditions, maybe held on to them more in the isolation, social and geograhic, of the Kent mining areas. I remember being young and assuming that all mens lungs packed in when they got old. My dad went the same way, it was awful to see him gradually suffocate.

[@jamesnicholson2503]

My late old man knew him,and my dad worked in Hoovers to,well over 20 years'and worked alongside ex miners.

[@anthonymaughan6103]

I was 9 in 1977 , & i can still remember all the power cuts , & we had a black & white television we had 2 put 2pence in the back , 2 work it ?? Happy Days though , im not cut out for 2022 😕

[@RaulFelixINC]

Coal Board: "How can we keep miners?" Miner 1: "Pay us more. Job is tough and requires skill." Coal Board: "So many are leaving... why they go?" Miner 2: "I like the work. Just pay us more." Coal Board: "We need to study this and figure out a solution." Miner 3: "Just pay us more like the essential workers we are." Coal Board: "So complicated...policy and such." Miner 4: "Change policy. Increase our pay. Easy. "

[@peterweatherley7669]

How simple you make it sound. They started on what equates today to £22k/year. Perfectly reasonable wage for a blue collar worker. Plus all manner of social benefits. A lot of that was gutted in order to find headroom in the budget for their ridiculous demands. No different to the rail workers of today. Always wanting more for the same productivity. Not how the world of commerce works.

[@Jon-em4kc]

​@@peterweatherley7669 what an absolute fool you are. They wanted fair pay for doing one of the most god awful jobs in the world and all you do is call them greedy. With such right wing values, why are you even bothering to watch!

[@brightspark54]

Christ an old hoover twintub. I used to service them at work and had a second hand one when I got married nicked the spares to fix it from work lol

[@prodbytaffy5542]

My Great-Grandfather was a coal miner, and before that a lead miner during the early 1900's in south and Midwest Wales

[@gerry9011]

My hats off for you Welshmen. You lads provided the union with the greatest thing to grace our earth. God speed the Welsh!

[@lea8466]

Same I'm trying to trace the mine my descendents worked down in Merthyr Tydfil, I was hoping for more historical footage from when the first coal mine/s opened, original owners etc, I need to research more.

[@koroshiya_1]

Same! My great great grandfather was a miner in North East Wales in the 1900s ❤

[@crusader8626]

Go up anywhere up the valleys now and you'll see the effects of the pits closing.

[@person.X.]

The Hoover factory closed in 2009.

[@davidjohn64]

Scargill , was no friend of the miners . He had his own agenda ..

[@rossmorebaz]

i wonder what happened to the people in this film.. hope their lives turned out ok

[@MarkJones-gd3nt]

finnmacool I joined the mines the year this documentary was filmed!no!we,r not allright!I haven't had a proper job since Thatcher put me out of work!but thanks for asking bless you!I spent 18yrs down there!

[@mebeasensei]

@@MarkJones-gd3nt Wow...interesting. So how does it make you feel to see this? Here the mines want workers, but the workers don't want to work there. 1980s Thatcher years, they want the workers to leave, shut down the colliery, and the workers want to work. I work in an ex-coal town in Japan. The mines all closed in the 60s and 70s. Then Japan bought coal from Australia..cheaper. But it is a mixed feeling we all have..a melancholy feeling. The town struggles on.Would it be better the mines were still operating? Or are we all better off without it? Were you attracted to the feeling that you were working in a dying industry? or did you think about the future much? These people must have known that coal loses money in developed countries and cheaper coal is to be bought overseas. They don't reflect this. Did you read those ads for man power?

[@Weazelmania]

Of course they did. Taking away the individual choices they made, the markets and quality of life got better year on year. Mining was a horrible thing. Thatcher only mistake was making the battle personal.

[@mebeasensei]

​@@Weazelmania the markets got better..For everyone? The market for continuing to build a life in a community and for a community building a town - that synergy or whatever you call it, loop, that was broken and won't come back. I am Australian, and mining has made Australians so rich, I can't afford to move back and live out my life there.

[@Weazelmania]

@@mebeasensei mining was no life here. What Thatcher did was brilliant for ending the unions but it stopped short. If the private sector had the mines without the union bullying, it could have been a modernised industry. But coal is not the future. That's where both Laboir and the Tories were right to close the mines. Thatcher just shouldn't have made it personal. Ironically what's killing these towns now is yet more statism and Labour voting. With fringe Conservativism. Wales needs less government and better education opportunities to continue thriving.

[@galaxygacha3954]

Great video 👍👍

[@j.mahoney1178]

My Great Grandfather, my Grandfather, and my Father were Miners, my Father was killed in a mining explosion in 1963 in Tower Colliery. All those Miners are legends, made of granite those people salt of the earth.

[@richardevans7035]

They are mate

[@Cynthia-s4h]

My family was the same in Yorkshire mines

[@johnwalton2019]

The plight of miners in some locations across the UK in the 70s was terrible. My utmost respect to those coal face workers of 30+ years, wow. My dad was a self employed union piece rate porter at the fish market in London Billingsgate in the early 1970s and probably earnt the same in one day what some of these Welsh miners earnt in five. Unfair.

[@martinjenkins5471]

At least you were making washing machines in the U.K. we don't make anything in Australia, we closed the car plants down the other year. All we do mine and farm. Everything is bought in cheap from bloody China. I suppose it's happening In Britain too.

[@williamfrancis5367]

Isn't the Australian economy mostly services? Besides Australia has some of the highest wages on the planet.

[@rajeshkumarbhagat]

So much family history to this....

[@adrianwilliams8302]

Is that Alayn Lloyd playing snooker.?

[@sandgrownun66]

The year this was made was 1973 not 1977.

[@GSFJAY]

great video

[@pauljohn6637]

Just noticed Adrian Williams had commented earlier, a Rhymney boy who emigrated to Canada. How's it going Adrian?

[@MikeAgate]

The day 'they' shut down the mines and the manufacturing, they sealed the end of prosperity. 😢

[@osianmuhammad]

what's the music at 13:50 mins in?

[@rhysjenkins24]

Watch the film above us the earth it's about ogilvie Colliery closing

[@nathaniliescu4597]

Says 1977 in the title and 1973 in description?!

[@sandgrownun66]

It should say 1973.

[@radiofc]

Public Service Broadcasting brought me here...

[@michaelbritton9778]

It’s all thanks to Maggie Thatcher and big mouth Arthur Scargill that all our pits have gone.

[@davidkeenan5642]

No it's not, it was due to mechanisation and large open cast mines abroad. employment in underground mining had been in steady decline since WW2.

[@nathaniliescu4597]

Why does the title say 1977 but description say 1973 ??

[@sandgrownun66]

Maybe because whoever wrote the title got it wrong!

[@COIcultist]

Looking at the film, it is just prior to the miner's strike of 1973. You would have to understand the 50s and 60s running down of the mining industry was all turned around with the oil crisis of the early 80s. There was not a crisis as such, but OPEC countries upped the price of oil and politically punished countries in the West for supporting Israel. The country finally realised it needed its own strategic energy source. Barely 10 years later, the massive investment in collieries was forgotten, and Margaret Thatcher killed the industry in an act of vengeance. North Sea Gas was raped to produce electricity in the "Dash For Gas." We have now burned off vast amounts of the gas and now import gas rather than marshalling the resource.

[@williamfrancis5367]

@@COIcultist. Thatcher was just doing to coal what Mcgregor did to Steel; slim it down to sell it off to Tory voters, members, and donors. In any case, the UK still got most of its electricity from coal until less than a decade ago, we just imported it from states with open cask mines, like Australia and Poland (especially during the miner's strike of 1984). The rationale for strategic reserves was outdated oil prices fell in the 1980s, and the global market saw new members in the form of ex-communist states. In any case the UK already has a strategic reserve we have been developing in the past decade: wind power.

[@COIcultist]

Sorry I wrote *" You would have to understand the 50s and 60s running down of the mining industry was all turned around with the oil crisis of the early 80s"* That is patently in error, the oil crisis came on the heels of the Yom Kippur war of 1973. The Plan For Coal was proposed in 1974 *"The 1974 Plan of Coal produced in the aftermath of the 1972 miners' strike envisaged that the coal industry would replace 40 million tons of obsolete capacity and ageing pits while maintaining its output.[12] By 1983, the NCB would invest £3,000 million on developing new collieries"* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Coal_Board#:~:text=The%201974%20Plan%20of%20Coal%20produced%20in%20the,would%20invest%20%C2%A33%2C000%20million%20on%20developing%20new%20collieries.

[@COIcultist]

@@williamfrancis5367 I like to provide links to pieces supporting what I say, alas KZbin has now adopted a policy of removing your comments if you have more than 2 or 3 links, so I will split this reply up into sections. *"Thatcher was just doing to coal what Mcgregor did to Steel; slim it down to sell it off to Tory voters, members, and donors."* The NCB/British Coal Got MacGregor 2.0 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_MacGregor MacGregor was out by 1986, but British Coal wasn't fit to be sold on. Only 15 deep mines remained when RJB Mining bought the rump of the industry in 1994. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Budge That might be 19 mines and what happened to the two other packages of mines I'm not sure, I'd left the industry by that point. We bought coal from Australia, Poland and America but initially post 85 or 86 the Blessed Margaret Hilda forced local authorities to buy coal from the cheapest source available and some of that coal was mined in Columbia where child miners were employed. Some said it was ethical or even decent, but Margaret didn't give a chuff, just as we only play lip service to slavery now with products made in sweat shops or by literal slaves in China. RJB's last throw of the dice came in 1996 when he tried to cajole the new Labour government into ensuring long term fixed price coal contracts for power station coal. However, by that time we were deep into "The Dash For Gas!"

[@bradleymilton9372]

That hoover factory is long gone so sad

[@clayton8720]

£7,500 for a washing machine in 1977?!

[@Jon-em4kc]

"people will pay 75, 100 for a washing machine" not 7500 😂

[@scabbycatcat4202]

Flippin eck ! one of the highest paid and he was only on £36 per week. That is only £276 per week in 2023 prices. Its no wonder they always seemed to be on strike. I am sure the car workers, steel workers, and most other manual labour jobs were paid more than that .

[@hannahdavies7388]

Dt half miss my grandparents coal fire

[@darren2514fv]

1973 not 1977

[@he_is_a_GOOBER_dont_disrespect]

Im sure some people reading here will know my grampa kenneth hughes what a man and what a shame whats happened to our country

[@jaggass]

Coal miners are the only people that can get away with blackface.

[@danielcain6671]

Shame coal mining went shame on all those that worked so hard for the country and also those that suffered and died too young with the black lung

[@carlaconnor8347]

What an oxymoron comment. They died with black lungs because of coal mining, you joke

[@waikanaebeach]

Sad, so very sad….

[@brightspark54]

theres more chance of death and accidents on building sites

[@staceygrove5976]

That's because there are no coal mines left!

[@deniseshephard3347]

Once a miner always a miner

[@nathanbrynmenyn935]

hope kids are looking back and realising that rules change because of votes, chat about where u go kids, not about drugs, make us oldies proud !!

[@fancifulrat]

If Voting Made a Difference, They Wouldn’t Let Us Do It

[@RSR423]

Voting changes nothing, never as done.

[@cafesociety8525]

@@RSR423 nothing's changed since we voted to leave the EU?

[@billyj.causeyvideoguy7361]

80 a week? Not day… week?

[@Carveaholic]

I don't blame them. That's hard work i wouldn't do for $313.96/WK either. Pay these folks what their worth.

[@volgg]

Came here from Trash Taste

[@rapman5363]

Pip Pip Cheerio Bob’s your Uncle

[@elenagallie7003]

'They will have to sink those pits again' said an old teaching assistant that I used to work with. I just got back from Russia, Gas is 3 gbp a month, electricity is around 15 gbp a month. Coal, oil is abundant and China is drinking it up like no tomorrow. Their monopolised rail is mainly dealing in 80 carriage crawls of coal oil and gas on the rail, some rock and building materials. These trains run at least 20 times day and night. We in the UK are dependent now for our energy. You know I think he is actually right, they will have to sink those pits again but actually if we do it this year we may be able to save valuable equipment. Knowing our country we will do it too late, we will get the govt. involved and then it will all be ruined. We need private entrepreneurs who own land to organise and start mines. Why am i paying 8.99 gbp for a 10kg bag of coal at my local Indians, this coal probably came from Poland? Can you imagine in this film people complained at paying 20gbp for a tonne of coal? Are we the experts at ripping ourselves and each-other off? Coal mining is a deeply British tradition and will never die. Now is its nadir, but it will arise.. It is harsh, un-human, extremely dangerous to work in a pit but as they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Are we ready? PS the Americans have resorted to shallow cast mining but at least they have private firms. They still need 70% of their electricity to be coal generated, of course they won't tell you this. I think that sensible investors and entrepreneurs have an ideal time to open new pits. Come to Nottingham, we have 47 old pits that need work. Clipstone in Mansfield looks like a good bet.

[@petercowdell1328]

Elena Gallie you do realise that 50% of our electricity comes from renewables now?

[@cafesociety8525]

The ravings of a lunatic.

[@Withnail1969]

There is nothing left to mine in the UK. The coal is gone. We mined it for over 1,000 years.

[@carlaconnor8347]

Man shut up and sit down somewhere

[@carlaconnor8347]

“But as they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” man shut up. Do tell, were you born yesterday cos it sounds like you were.

[@thomasdonald3291]

I bet Hoover has gone bust, all gone abroad, all that skill lost forever

[@giorgipiorgi]

Men like these built Britain. Not diversity

[@ThomasBoyd-d7j]

Awesome thanks. Miners won it 1973 however it short term in England London Britain and Wales. Tories did forget about it. Harold Wilson Labour government give them 25% pay rise to miners. Keir Starmer Labour government remove winter fuel allowance £200 10 million pensioners in Britain England London Britain. Left wing Labour party that not case politically against elderly people in England London Britain Labour government in 2024.

[@JamesRichards-mj9kw]

Coal mining should have been phased out during the 1960s.

[@richardevans7035]

True at least Aberfan might have been avoided

[@JamesRichards-mj9kw]

@@richardevans7035 That was Labour's fault.

[@richardevans7035]

@@JamesRichards-mj9kw agree

[@bradleymilton9372]

Arthur scargill killed the coal

[@nicensleazy1892]

Who could ever Vote Tory !

[@fancifulrat]

If Voting Made a Difference, They Wouldn’t Let Us Do It

[@vikingsmb]

labour are not that perfect mate, dont get me wrong with the strike in 84, things should of been done differently, personally i think some of the pits should be re-opened, and btw i'm a tory. and i do like the rhondda etc.

[@vikingsmb]

@@Helen44marie I know and its a joke, 20mph etc everywhere, people are fed up now