An 11-part television history of Britain at work in the 20th century.
6: Cutting Coal
Coal had powered Britain's industrial rise. Her mills and furnaces, railways and steamships, depended on it. In the peak years a million men laboured in the mines, many in conditions like those Dick Martin found when he began as a pit boy aged 14: 'I was scared stiff by the atmosphere in the pit, the conditions we were expected to work under, the stench, the darkness, and I cried my eyes out to my father and said, "I don't want to go back there, Dad." "Well, it's a case of you've got to," he said.'
Miners and managers tell of the poor conditions, insecurity and technical backwardness that helped the case for nationalisation in 1947. But the new NCB overestimated the future need for coal. After the massive postwar modernisation programme, demand changed. With the cutbacks came conflict. Music CARL DAVIS Played by GRIMETHORPE COLLIERY BAND Arranged by RAY FARR Producer RUTH JACKSON Executive producer
PETER PAGNAMENTA (R)
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