New book ‘102 Things to Do with a Hole in the Ground‘ spotlights global reclamation projects
Stories of reinvented coal mining regions, regenerated communities and rebuilt ecosystems are told in a new book published this month.
Men leaving a UK colliery at the close of a shift. Painting by Gerald Palmer. Image from Wikipedia.
The Economist marks the end of one of Britain’s greatest industries now that some of the last remaining coal mines are set to close:
At their peak, shortly before the first world war, the deep mines of Yorkshire, Durham, South Wales and other sedimentary places, engines of the Industrial Revolution, employed over a million men and boys. They were the foundation of the modern British economy, “a sort of caryatid”, wrote George Orwell, “upon whose shoulders nearly everything that is not grimy is supported”.
But mining has ever since been in decline, marked by sudden bursts of pit closure more divisive, and calamitous for the communities affected, than any other aspect of Britain’s deindustrialisation. Twenty-three pits closed in 1985, after the year-long miners’ strike and the industry’s subsequent privatisation; 16 in 1989; and in 1991 another 14.
Now, only three deep mines remain, employing 2,000 miners, including 436 at Hatfield, close to Doncaster. And in the next few months they too will close.
Comments
Jake Scott
What about Scottish contribution obviously an English narrow minded author who is not qualified to write such an article.