0:00:04 > 0:00:07Just over a century ago the motion camera was invented
0:00:07 > 0:00:10and changed forever the way we recall our history.
0:00:10 > 0:00:11For the first time,
0:00:11 > 0:00:15we could see life through the eyes of ordinary people.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20Across this series,
0:00:20 > 0:00:24we'll bring these rare archive films back to life
0:00:24 > 0:00:26with the help of our vintage mobile cinema.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33We'll invite people with a story to tell to step on board
0:00:33 > 0:00:37and relive moments they thought were gone forever.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43They'll see their relatives on screen for the first time,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46come face to face with their younger selves,
0:00:46 > 0:00:49and celebrate our amazing 20th-century past.
0:00:51 > 0:00:53This is the people's story.
0:00:53 > 0:00:54Our story.
0:01:19 > 0:01:24Our vintage mobile cinema was originally commissioned in 1967
0:01:24 > 0:01:26to show training films to workers.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29Today, it's been lovingly restored
0:01:29 > 0:01:31and loaded up with remarkable film footage,
0:01:31 > 0:01:33preserved for us by the British Film Institute
0:01:33 > 0:01:37and other national and regional film archives.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41In this series we'll be travelling to towns and cities
0:01:41 > 0:01:43across the country
0:01:43 > 0:01:45and showing films from the 20th century
0:01:45 > 0:01:48that give us the Reel History of Britain.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56Today, we're pulling up in the 1930s
0:01:56 > 0:02:01to salute Britain's Black Diamonds - brave miners who risked their lives
0:02:01 > 0:02:03digging for the coal that powered an empire.
0:02:18 > 0:02:22We're at the Big Pit Mining Museum in South Wales and today we're going
0:02:22 > 0:02:26to look that most dangerous of occupations, coal mining.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32Coming up - the shocking truth
0:02:32 > 0:02:36about one of the worst disasters in coal mining history.
0:02:36 > 0:02:37Because they were killed
0:02:37 > 0:02:39three quarters of the way through the shift,
0:02:39 > 0:02:41they docked them a quarter of their wages.
0:02:41 > 0:02:43Thank you very much.
0:02:43 > 0:02:45'Surprising news about the safety equipment
0:02:45 > 0:02:47'used by coal miners in the 1930s.'
0:02:47 > 0:02:50In those days there'd be a flat cap,
0:02:50 > 0:02:52their own shoes, and they had to buy them.
0:02:52 > 0:02:53They weren't supplied with them.
0:02:53 > 0:02:58And we reveal the occupational hazards of working with pit ponies.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01If you've ever been bit by an horse, it's something you never forget
0:03:01 > 0:03:05cos it really is painful, I really can assure you.
0:03:16 > 0:03:20Today the Blaenavon Town Brass Band are playing just for us
0:03:20 > 0:03:24at The Big Pit Mining Museum in South Wales,
0:03:24 > 0:03:28which was once one of 500 collieries that dominated the landscape.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31We've come here because this is one of the few remaining monuments
0:03:31 > 0:03:34to our coal mining heritage
0:03:34 > 0:03:35and visitors can go underground
0:03:35 > 0:03:38and get a glimpse of what it was like to be a miner.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51100 years ago, British coal was king.
0:03:51 > 0:03:53It fuelled manufacturing,
0:03:53 > 0:03:56supplied heat for homes, and was our largest employer.
0:04:00 > 0:04:05In 1913, British mines produced a third of the world's coal
0:04:05 > 0:04:07and employed over a million men,
0:04:07 > 0:04:11who lived in close-knit communities around the collieries.
0:04:11 > 0:04:14After the First World War there was a sharp decline in output
0:04:14 > 0:04:19due to a global depression and the loss of export markets.
0:04:19 > 0:04:24On top of this, miners were beginning to be replaced by machines.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29As the miners toiled below ground for coal,
0:04:29 > 0:04:33they earned their pay the hard way and risked death on every shift.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40We've come to Blaenavon in South Wales
0:04:40 > 0:04:43to celebrate their bravery.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46Joining me are former coal miners and their families
0:04:46 > 0:04:47from all over the country
0:04:47 > 0:04:51with stories to tell about life down the mines.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55Many of them will be seeing the films we're about to screen for the first time.
0:04:55 > 0:04:57They'll be showing us family photos
0:04:57 > 0:05:00and revealing what life was really like
0:05:00 > 0:05:03for millions of coal miners at that time.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08Arthur Lewis lives in Essex, but he was born in South Wales
0:05:08 > 0:05:13and he knows first hand what it was like to be a miner before the war.
0:05:13 > 0:05:18In 1935, aged 14, he went down the pit as a coal miner's apprentice.
0:05:20 > 0:05:21Did you feel there was an option?
0:05:21 > 0:05:26Your life was, you were going down the mine, and that was that?
0:05:26 > 0:05:30That was it, because I went to school
0:05:30 > 0:05:33and at the age of 11, I was asked to go home
0:05:33 > 0:05:39and ask my parents could I go to sit an exam for the grammar school.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41But my father had been injured so badly
0:05:41 > 0:05:44that there was no money in the family.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46We were four boys and four girls.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48I never did go to grammar school,
0:05:48 > 0:05:52but at the age of 14, I went underground.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57Now aged 89, we're about to show Arthur
0:05:57 > 0:06:00films that will take him underground again,
0:06:00 > 0:06:03to a time in his life that he thought he would never see.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07But what memories will they evoke for him?
0:06:23 > 0:06:27My brothers and that, they used to get up in the morning,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30go down the pit and then they'd come home
0:06:30 > 0:06:33at the end of the shift and bath in front of the fire
0:06:33 > 0:06:36and my father never had his back washed.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39It weakened your back if you had your back washed.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42So although you put clean vests and shirts on,
0:06:42 > 0:06:43you never washed your back
0:06:43 > 0:06:48and a friend of mine who lived in Barry Island, near the seaside,
0:06:48 > 0:06:52he said you knew when the miners from the valleys came
0:06:52 > 0:06:55because their backs were always black!
0:06:57 > 0:07:00Like most boys from a mining community,
0:07:00 > 0:07:02Arthur followed his father and brothers
0:07:02 > 0:07:04down into the dark world of the coal miner.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10When you got off on pit bottom,
0:07:10 > 0:07:15there were lights for about 100 yards and then everything was dark.
0:07:15 > 0:07:21So all I had was a flame safety lamp and that was all the light I had.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24And I would walk then about a mile-and-a-half
0:07:24 > 0:07:26to get into the coal face
0:07:26 > 0:07:30and still my only light was this flame safety lamp.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34But somehow or another, in the black darkness,
0:07:34 > 0:07:35it seemed to be a lot of light.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38But you were never allowed to put it on the floor,
0:07:38 > 0:07:41cos if you knocked it over it went out,
0:07:41 > 0:07:44and if it went out, you had to go all the way back to the pit,
0:07:44 > 0:07:45to the surface, to get it relit.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49The safety lamp Arthur used was called a Davy lamp,
0:07:49 > 0:07:51first invented in 1815
0:07:51 > 0:07:54because naked flames from candles or oil lamps
0:07:54 > 0:07:57could easily ignite volatile gases.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00The Davy lamp saved thousands of lives and was still used
0:08:00 > 0:08:03well after the introduction of battery-powered torches.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09The films Arthur is watching
0:08:09 > 0:08:13reflect exactly the life he remembers below ground.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15Then you used to hack at the coal
0:08:15 > 0:08:17and we used to undercut the coal,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21I used to get down on my knees and undercut the seam of coal
0:08:21 > 0:08:23because we were only paid for large coal,
0:08:23 > 0:08:27so if you'd made a lot of small coal,
0:08:27 > 0:08:32went up the tip, you didn't get paid for it.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35Halfway through the shift
0:08:35 > 0:08:39somebody would look at the watch and say, time to have a break.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41So you'd go back up to where your clothes were,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45take out your sandwiches and your water, or tea, whatever you had,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48with your dirty hands, cos you didn't wash them anywhere.
0:08:48 > 0:08:53You might use a bit of paper if you were sensitive,
0:08:53 > 0:08:54but you just got on and ate it.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00Before the Second World War, mines were privately owned
0:09:00 > 0:09:02and often, if a miner suffered an accident,
0:09:02 > 0:09:05it was his own colleagues who would come to his aid,
0:09:05 > 0:09:08something that Arthur experienced first hand.
0:09:08 > 0:09:12If it was a serious accident, then I'd have to see to them.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17I was called to a man that was buried, and he was dead.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20We had to take him home and I had to lay him out on a table.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23I was 17 then.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27And we had to bath him on a scrub top table.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30Put a clean shirt on him.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33And, er, there was a coal fire raging in the kitchen
0:09:33 > 0:09:35and a room filled with napkins
0:09:35 > 0:09:38cos a baby had been born about three months earlier.
0:09:41 > 0:09:45Arthur's life as a miner in the 1930s was tough.
0:09:45 > 0:09:50The risks were high and the pay was low, but there was little choice.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53The General Strike of 1926 and the Great Depression
0:09:53 > 0:09:57had resulted in mass unemployment, so any job was better than no job.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01It was your life.
0:10:01 > 0:10:03You got up in the morning at four o'clock
0:10:03 > 0:10:05and you'd have to go out of the house
0:10:05 > 0:10:09by about quarter past five, to be down the pit by six
0:10:09 > 0:10:14and you knew you were down there for 7, 8 hours.
0:10:14 > 0:10:16But that was your life.
0:10:31 > 0:10:33You'll have some idea now
0:10:33 > 0:10:35about the working conditions of miners.
0:10:35 > 0:10:37For a lot of people watching, I'm sure,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40it looks like Dante's Inferno, or some kind of vision of hell.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43It could get up to 80 degrees Fahrenheit or more.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47There was no fresh air and until quite recently,
0:10:47 > 0:10:49very little safety indeed.
0:10:49 > 0:10:54So I'm going to take a tourist's eye view and see what it's like now.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57The Big Pit Mining Museum in South Wales
0:10:57 > 0:11:01was once a working colliery dating back to 1860.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04Now it's a world heritage site,
0:11:04 > 0:11:07attracting 165,000 visitors every year,
0:11:07 > 0:11:09and today I'm one of them.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12Paul Green, the Mine Deputy, is showing me around.
0:11:12 > 0:11:14So how deep are we going down?
0:11:14 > 0:11:18We're going 90 metres, Melvyn. 300 feet.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21We're going to travel at a maximum speed of two metres per second,
0:11:21 > 0:11:23unless this bloody rope breaks!
0:11:23 > 0:11:25Yeah? It's going to be a lot quicker!
0:11:31 > 0:11:34Watch the little step as you come out.
0:11:34 > 0:11:39At its peak in 1913, South Wales produced 60 million tonnes of coal
0:11:39 > 0:11:44due to the large rich seams lying under the surface.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47- See the coal seam back there?- Yeah.
0:11:47 > 0:11:49So a seam of coal, rubbish and coal.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52Now this system used to work as a man and boy would work it.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54Father and son, yeah?
0:11:54 > 0:11:56Take the coal off, onto the floor,
0:11:56 > 0:12:01and then the lad would fill the curling box with lumps.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03Size of my fist, yeah?
0:12:03 > 0:12:05Into the curling box, tip them into the dram.
0:12:05 > 0:12:08What sort of equipment
0:12:08 > 0:12:12would they have had in the '20s or '30s, or even before that?
0:12:12 > 0:12:14The equipment they would have
0:12:14 > 0:12:18would be a mandrel, a shovel, a hatchet and a sledge.
0:12:18 > 0:12:19What about safety equipment?
0:12:19 > 0:12:24No. Flat cap. In those days it'd be a flat cap,
0:12:24 > 0:12:28their own shoes, and they had to buy them, mind. They weren't supplied with them.
0:12:28 > 0:12:30Working alongside the miners,
0:12:30 > 0:12:34pulling the drams, or tubs of coal, were the pit ponies.
0:12:34 > 0:12:38They first started working down mines as early as 1750
0:12:38 > 0:12:42and by the 1930s there were over 30,000 ponies
0:12:42 > 0:12:44working in British mines.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47So these are the stables?
0:12:47 > 0:12:50Yep. It's one of the original stables here at Big Pit.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53We had 72 horses working here in its heyday.
0:12:53 > 0:12:55Come down the mine at the age of four.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59And they would work eight hours a day,
0:12:59 > 0:13:02but they were very well looked after.
0:13:02 > 0:13:04If anything happened to that horse,
0:13:04 > 0:13:07whether he got injured or he'd die or whatever, they'd have an inquiry.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09If it was found it was a haulier's fault, he would have the sack.
0:13:09 > 0:13:11A mine owner had to buy another horse.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14He didn't have to buy another haulier, did he?
0:13:14 > 0:13:17- Horses got treated better than the miners.- Better than the miners.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19- Yeah.- They did.
0:13:19 > 0:13:21Since the Second World War,
0:13:21 > 0:13:25pit ponies were gradually replaced by conveyor belts and trains,
0:13:25 > 0:13:28but incredibly there were still 55 ponies working down
0:13:28 > 0:13:30the British mines in 1984.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39I'm about to meet someone who can tell me more
0:13:39 > 0:13:40about what it was like
0:13:40 > 0:13:43working with these incredible, hardy animals.
0:13:43 > 0:13:45David Bogg was a young pony driver
0:13:45 > 0:13:48at the Woolley Colliery in Yorkshire during the '50s
0:13:48 > 0:13:52when working with pit ponies was exactly as it had been in the 1930s.
0:13:52 > 0:13:54You obviously enjoyed working with the horses though, didn't you?
0:13:54 > 0:13:56I did. I liked working with the horses.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00You'd to walk... Well, you're supposed to walk it like,
0:14:00 > 0:14:02but...we never did! We used to lie them on the ground.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04You used to lie on the back of the horse?
0:14:04 > 0:14:06We used to sit on them and ride it.
0:14:06 > 0:14:07But the one that I had,
0:14:07 > 0:14:10it were a stallion and it were frisky all the time.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13It wanted to be off and it run me into the side once
0:14:13 > 0:14:15and put five stitches in me knee.
0:14:15 > 0:14:17The film David's about to see
0:14:17 > 0:14:21will take him back to the coal face of his yesteryears.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24What memories will our film recall for him?
0:14:37 > 0:14:42This film, Workmates, was shot in 1940.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45It was an account of the important part played by ponies
0:14:45 > 0:14:47in the coal industry.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54They were well looked after in the pits, the horses.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58They had stablemen. I mean, at Woolley Colliery, at one stage,
0:14:58 > 0:15:02when I were there, they had 'owt from between 60 and 100 horses.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06But I mean, they had more horses than what they needed,
0:15:06 > 0:15:10simply because if an horse needed shoeing, you'd got to,
0:15:10 > 0:15:14you've got to take another one. So they'd got to have substitutes.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17Injuries to pit ponies were commonplace,
0:15:17 > 0:15:22but their welfare was protected under the 1911 Coal Mines Act,
0:15:22 > 0:15:27which required every colliery to provide regular medical inspections,
0:15:27 > 0:15:29a good diet and clean stables.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32David remembers some of the occupational hazards
0:15:32 > 0:15:34of working with pit ponies.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37I found it really interesting watching that film
0:15:37 > 0:15:41when it showed you the horses, into the men's coats with it. Ha!
0:15:41 > 0:15:43I did think that were dead funny because...
0:15:43 > 0:15:45I've had that myself.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49I hadn't tied the horse up and, er, I've been that interested
0:15:49 > 0:15:52in getting the timber onto the belts and what have you, like,
0:15:52 > 0:15:56and I didn't notice that the horse were into the coats of the colliers,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00and of course it used to rip the coats and everything to get at it.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04Pit ponies stayed underground for 50 weeks of the year.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Coming up for the colliery's two-week summer holiday
0:16:07 > 0:16:10must have been an unbridled joy for them.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12A good pit pony had to be even-tempered.
0:16:12 > 0:16:17More lively horses could be a danger to the drivers and to other horses.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20There were an horse there and they called it Jester.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23It were a black and white one.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25One day I were in the stables with one of the stablemen
0:16:25 > 0:16:29and this Jester, he bit this stableman on his arm here.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31If you've ever been bit by an horse,
0:16:31 > 0:16:33it's something you never forget cos it really is painful.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35I really can assure you.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38Anyway, this stableman, he wrestled this horse down onto the floor
0:16:38 > 0:16:40and bit him back.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43And many years later, I were talking to him about it,
0:16:43 > 0:16:45I says, "I remember, Des, when thou did that."
0:16:45 > 0:16:47I says, "Did Jester ever bit thee again?"
0:16:47 > 0:16:48He says, "No, the bugger didn't!"
0:16:55 > 0:16:58When David went from being a pony driver to a coal miner,
0:16:58 > 0:17:02he found out for himself just how dangerous the job could be,
0:17:02 > 0:17:07as he's about to see in this amateur drama-documentary
0:17:07 > 0:17:10from 1932, called Black Diamonds,
0:17:10 > 0:17:12which recreated a pit disaster
0:17:12 > 0:17:14to show the general public the hazards endured by miners.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16Look out!
0:17:21 > 0:17:24If you get hurt in a pit, it's usually where the roof falls in.
0:17:24 > 0:17:29I've been buried a few times. It ain't a nice feeling.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32But not too seriously. It ain't been big lumps of stone
0:17:32 > 0:17:36that's come and hit me and caused serious injuries.
0:17:40 > 0:17:42I always knew that life could be short.
0:17:42 > 0:17:47This were brought home to me quite early in me life when I were working
0:17:47 > 0:17:50at a pit, and there were a guy there I knew quite well.
0:17:50 > 0:17:53The whole roof fell in on him and killed him outright.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59That had a lifelong impression on me.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01It's something that I never got over, really.
0:18:10 > 0:18:16On Reel History today we've come to the Big Pit Mining Museum in Blaenavon in South Wales
0:18:16 > 0:18:20to remember the brave men who risked their lives down British mines.
0:18:20 > 0:18:22All mining communities live with
0:18:22 > 0:18:25the threat of disasters and loss of life.
0:18:25 > 0:18:27My own grandfather in a West Cumbrian coalfield
0:18:27 > 0:18:29was in a pit disaster in the 1920s
0:18:29 > 0:18:32after he'd come back from the First World War.
0:18:32 > 0:18:34Luckily, he survived.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38During the 1930s, there was an average of 800 deaths a year
0:18:38 > 0:18:43in Britain, making it the most dangerous occupation on land.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45One woman here today has a personal connection
0:18:45 > 0:18:49to one of the worst disasters in British coal mining history.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52Vicki Stradling from the Isle of Wight lost her Great-Uncle George
0:18:52 > 0:18:56when he was killed in a gas explosion at Gresford Colliery
0:18:56 > 0:18:57in Wrexham, North Wales.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00This is my father's family.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04My grandfather and my two uncles worked in Gresford.
0:19:04 > 0:19:09Everybody in the village lost somebody and I lost my great-uncle.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13Vicki is about to see news footage of that terrible day
0:19:13 > 0:19:15on 22nd September 1934
0:19:15 > 0:19:20when her Great-Uncle George and hundreds of others lost their lives.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23How will she react to watching the same news report
0:19:23 > 0:19:26that her family would have seen over 70 years ago?
0:19:38 > 0:19:41NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: 'Views of the coal mine in North Wales
0:19:41 > 0:19:44'depict the scene of the terrible pit disaster
0:19:44 > 0:19:45'involving such tragic loss of life.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48'A big explosion in the Gresford Colliery, near Wrexham,
0:19:48 > 0:19:50'in the early hours of the morning
0:19:50 > 0:19:52'occurred when 400 men were working below.'
0:19:53 > 0:19:57'Of these, 200 men were able to make their escape to the surface at once,
0:19:57 > 0:19:58'but the remainder were trapped
0:19:58 > 0:20:02'and it is from these victims that the ghastly death roll is composed.'
0:20:04 > 0:20:09I had to sort of wipe a tear from my eye when I saw the film of Gresford.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13'The exact figures cannot yet be accurately computed,
0:20:13 > 0:20:15'but the scene at the pit head
0:20:15 > 0:20:18'as news is anxiously awaited tells its own story.'
0:20:18 > 0:20:22Vicki's grandfather, Walter, Great-Uncle George and Uncle Arthur
0:20:22 > 0:20:25were all miners working at the Gresford Colliery
0:20:25 > 0:20:27when the disaster happened.
0:20:27 > 0:20:29Vicki reads from her father's diary.
0:20:29 > 0:20:30He was 13 at the time.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37He said, "I remember when the Gresford Colliery explosion
0:20:37 > 0:20:39"happened in 1934.
0:20:39 > 0:20:41"265 men were killed
0:20:41 > 0:20:45"and I believe almost every child in my school lost a relative.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47"My uncle George was killed.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51"My elder brother Arthur was in a different part of the pit
0:20:51 > 0:20:54"at the time, and I vividly remember him waking Dad
0:20:54 > 0:20:57"during the night to tell him the terrible news."
0:20:57 > 0:20:59Vicki's uncle was on the rescue team
0:20:59 > 0:21:02that struggled to extinguish the fire
0:21:02 > 0:21:05and reach any possible survivors.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11Uncle Arthur told me
0:21:11 > 0:21:16that the man next to him, when they were on the rescue team,
0:21:16 > 0:21:20because the masks were made of rubber and they sweated a lot,
0:21:20 > 0:21:22it was so hot down in the pit,
0:21:22 > 0:21:25he took off his mask to wipe the sweat off his face
0:21:25 > 0:21:28and dropped down dead at the side of him because of the gas there.
0:21:28 > 0:21:33The disaster claimed 266 lives and the fatal section of the mine
0:21:33 > 0:21:36where it happened was sealed for safety.
0:21:36 > 0:21:41The bodies of those men still lie there today, entombed forever.
0:21:41 > 0:21:46Incredibly, the pit owners docked the wage packets of the dead miners.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48Because they were killed
0:21:48 > 0:21:52I think it was three quarters of the way through the shift,
0:21:52 > 0:21:54they docked them for the last...
0:21:54 > 0:21:56they docked them a quarter of their wages.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59It's absolutely horrendous, isn't it?
0:21:59 > 0:22:03Donations for the bereaved came in from across Britain
0:22:03 > 0:22:06and the colliery closed during an inquiry.
0:22:06 > 0:22:08After six months, it reopened
0:22:08 > 0:22:12and the remaining miners returned down the mine.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16They felt it was difficult, I think, but then what option did they have?
0:22:16 > 0:22:18That was their job
0:22:18 > 0:22:23and it must have been very, very difficult for them to go down,
0:22:23 > 0:22:26knowing that the bodies of the miners, I mean, they sealed it up,
0:22:26 > 0:22:30but it must have been difficult for them to go down knowing that,
0:22:30 > 0:22:32but they did, because that was their job.
0:22:32 > 0:22:37The people of Gresford never recovered from the tragedy,
0:22:37 > 0:22:39but their loss wasn't entirely in vain.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44The trade unions continued to campaign hard for improved safety
0:22:44 > 0:22:46and an end to private ownership in the coal industry.
0:22:48 > 0:22:55They were very brave men and... miners are very brave men.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59They work in, worked in very difficult conditions.
0:22:59 > 0:23:00These people were indeed,
0:23:00 > 0:23:03as it said in the film you showed us,
0:23:03 > 0:23:05the Black Diamonds of the country.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08They fuelled the country.
0:23:20 > 0:23:25# There is a valley called the Rhondda
0:23:25 > 0:23:29# Where I was born
0:23:29 > 0:23:33# So many years ago... #
0:23:36 > 0:23:39Up and down Britain in places like this,
0:23:39 > 0:23:43for generations men - and their sons, often - went down the pits.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47I'm going to talk to somebody whose father and father before him
0:23:47 > 0:23:51for eight generations went down the coal mines.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55After spending 16 years down a pit near Pontypridd,
0:23:55 > 0:23:59Ceri Thompson is now the curator of the Big Pit Museum.
0:23:59 > 0:24:01I'm joining him in the old pithead baths to find out
0:24:01 > 0:24:05what was done to improve conditions for miners in the 1930s and beyond.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11Even though it was improving a lot in the 1920s and 1930s,
0:24:11 > 0:24:16most of the coal was cut by hand especially in South Wales.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20In other coalfields like Scotland, they had machinery cutting the coal,
0:24:20 > 0:24:21but in South Wales they didn't.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24It was still basically working with muscle.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27Also, of course, it was the early days of the pithead baths.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30So you got dirty underground and you took that dirt home with you,
0:24:30 > 0:24:32which made life very difficult for the families,
0:24:32 > 0:24:34especially the wives
0:24:34 > 0:24:37because basically the wife was there to boil water
0:24:37 > 0:24:39and one doctor in the 1930s said
0:24:39 > 0:24:42you had more cases of children being scalded
0:24:42 > 0:24:44and women being injured in the house
0:24:44 > 0:24:47than there were men being killed and injured on the coal face.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51So it was more dangerous to be a housewife in that period
0:24:51 > 0:24:52than to be a miner on the face.
0:24:52 > 0:24:57Pithead baths started to emerge after the First World War
0:24:57 > 0:24:59and were paid for by the Miners Welfare Fund,
0:24:59 > 0:25:04supported by a levy of one penny per ton of coal raised in Great Britain.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08Those miners lucky enough to have baths could wash in comfort.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14The story of the development of the pithead baths
0:25:14 > 0:25:15is quite a fascinating one.
0:25:15 > 0:25:17You've seen this building.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20It's got a flat roof, it's got glass illumination in a lot of places
0:25:20 > 0:25:24and it's actually arranged as a washing machine for miners,
0:25:24 > 0:25:25if you think of it.
0:25:25 > 0:25:27They come in one end clean.
0:25:27 > 0:25:29They put their clean clothes in a locker,
0:25:29 > 0:25:32they walk through to a dirty locker, which we're in now,
0:25:32 > 0:25:34they put their dirty clothes on and then they go to work.
0:25:34 > 0:25:38What happens to the dirty clothes between days and between weeks?
0:25:38 > 0:25:42Well, I used to change my socks once a year if they needed it or not,
0:25:42 > 0:25:43to be honest with you.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46As time went on, the Miners Welfare Fund
0:25:46 > 0:25:49also paid for recreational facilities such as bowling greens
0:25:49 > 0:25:53and tennis courts, which helped create communities
0:25:53 > 0:25:56and strengthen the bonds between workers.
0:25:56 > 0:25:57However terrible it was,
0:25:57 > 0:26:01there does seem to be an unbroken sense of camaraderie
0:26:01 > 0:26:05- that came not so much out of the work, but because of the work.- Yeah.
0:26:05 > 0:26:10I think the work on the coal face ensures that you work together.
0:26:10 > 0:26:14You have to work together, otherwise you die, basically.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17So there's no point in arguing with people.
0:26:17 > 0:26:18You've just got to get on with them
0:26:18 > 0:26:21straightaway, and actually go on together.
0:26:21 > 0:26:23These were very hard men,
0:26:23 > 0:26:25but they could be very gentle men as well, you know?
0:26:25 > 0:26:27A lot of the hobbies they had
0:26:27 > 0:26:30wasn't to do with cock fighting and bull baiting and what have you.
0:26:30 > 0:26:34They used to play instruments, they used to write poetry.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37Around the chapels and miners' institutes,
0:26:37 > 0:26:41sporting and social activities flourished.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45Choirs, brass bands, dog racing and dances
0:26:45 > 0:26:47were all immensely popular pastimes.
0:26:47 > 0:26:50The biggest shame is really that the communities have gone.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54But it's also nice to be part of a team working underground.
0:26:54 > 0:26:56Like I said, we usually got on with each other.
0:26:56 > 0:26:59I can't remember disliking anybody I worked with on the coal face
0:26:59 > 0:27:02and, er, you did have the feeling...
0:27:03 > 0:27:06It's difficult. It's not tangible,
0:27:06 > 0:27:09but there's a feeling that... you belong somewhere.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22It's been great hearing about the sense of community
0:27:22 > 0:27:25that was strengthened in one of Britain's massive industries
0:27:25 > 0:27:27in the 1930s.
0:27:27 > 0:27:29In 1947 coal mining was nationalised
0:27:29 > 0:27:34and along with that came vast improvements to working conditions.
0:27:34 > 0:27:39But the industry continued to decline and in the 1980s,
0:27:39 > 0:27:43Margaret Thatcher's government announced the closure of 20 pits
0:27:43 > 0:27:45and the loss of 20,000 jobs.
0:27:45 > 0:27:51In its heyday the British coal industry had 2,662 collieries.
0:27:51 > 0:27:55Today, it's a shadow of its former self. Only 15 remain.
0:28:01 > 0:28:02Well, to tell you the truth,
0:28:02 > 0:28:05I'm a bit overwhelmed about what's happened today.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09So much work, so much suffering really,
0:28:09 > 0:28:11so few people massively rewarded.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14But at the end of it what remains
0:28:14 > 0:28:16is the feeling of the people round here,
0:28:16 > 0:28:18what they made of themselves
0:28:18 > 0:28:21because of and despite everything,
0:28:21 > 0:28:24and out of that they brought their own character,
0:28:24 > 0:28:27their own virtues and music.
0:28:27 > 0:28:28And we salute them.
0:28:31 > 0:28:34Next time on Reel History:
0:28:34 > 0:28:36we're at Cliveden House in Berkshire,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39remembering the party days of the roaring '20s.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42These bright young people all got together
0:28:42 > 0:28:44and had all these different themed parties.
0:28:44 > 0:28:46They were always dressing up.
0:28:46 > 0:28:50Sometimes they weren't in their ordinary clothes for several days.
0:29:12 > 0:29:15Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd