End of an era....

[Groucho]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33959137

[Ragged Robin]

I don's want to start a discussion on the politics or economics or denigrate the suffering from the closure of British coal mines, but I do think that article glamorizes it. As one who spent a formative part of my childhood in South Yorkshire my memories of coal mining are that, apart from the sheer ugliness of the whole thing, it was a very dangerous and unhealthy occupation. My main reaction to the closure of the last deep mine, it that, whatever else is wrong with modern Britain (and to my mind there is a lot!) , at least it does not include tragic crowds of women and children waiting at "t'pit head" for news of husbands, sons, lovers, brothers and fathers trapped deep underground

[tutor4u]

Says it all really

"It's absolutely heart-breaking," says Dave Douglass, a former pit delegate and secretary who has spent his life working at the recently-closed Hatfield pit near Doncaster.
"The only way that a non-professional working class lad could earn a decent living, buy a house and get a decent car and holiday was by being a miner, and being a miner was a very proud thing to be."

[cyprusgaz]

Opinionated I am not. Fence sitter extraordinaire I am but and it is a heart felt but. There was only one person between Thatcher Heseltine MacGregor and Scargill telling the truth in 1984. Guess who?

[topten]

I wonder if coal can still be purchased cheaper from "overseas" suppliers? or if like any other devious company once they have your " testicles" in their hands keep tightening their grip on them. I.e. price increases knowing that your supplies of coal are limited to overseas companies.