Not your average hotel elevator.
Paul descends into darkness
The cameraman glanced at me with a slightly nervous look, having just completed the final checks on the special camera we had hired. It was 1984 and we were about to go down one of the last deep coal mines in the UK. It was to be a long and tense journey. The hired camera, I was told, was special as it had been designed to not produce any sparks, sparks that could set off the deadly methane gas, which was always a danger.
As we stepped inside the cage that would take us 390 metres underground, the crew and I were nervous. That couldn’t be said of the miners, they spent their lives in this environment and were at home in this dark world. The cage, suspended from the huge wheels at the top of the mine, was nothing like your average hotel elevator. It descended at a speed that took your breath away. Down we went, deeper and deeper into another world.
Coal mining had been in decline for a number of years and I had reported on many occasions from the gates of the pit, but this was different. For the first time I had a glimpse into the world of a miner. As the cage stopped at the bottom of the shaft we then boarded a small train to the coal face nearly six kilometres under the sea. I finally began to understand something of the lives of these unique men.
This was a dark, dangerous world where you relied completely on your fellow miners. It was an unforgiving place where carelessness could cost you your life. Indeed, accidents had happened in this mine, and somewhere down here there were miners who had died and sadly couldn’t be recovered.
Coal dust was everywhere. Working in these conditions was dangerous and exhausting. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind that hundreds of metres above me was the sea. At no point during that day did I feel comfortable, but around me the miners could not have been more helpful, and I felt they were happy to have had their world filmed.
It was not long after this experience that the miners went on strike. It was one of the most bitter and fraught industrial actions the UK had experienced. It was also difficult to report. The miners and the media had a taut relationship, but at Haig Pit being local mattered, and they knew me from local television so we understood each other.
It was dangerous however. One morning the crew and myself were outside the gates of the pit when miners from another area arrived on a bus. They were called “flying pickets” and definitely did not like the media. Surrounding us the situation quickly became difficult, and I could see me and the crew were in trouble. Without warning our miners surrounded us and pushed the other miners back. They, the miners from away, became very angry. “They’re the enemy, why defend them?” said one. “Ay Marra (Marra was a term West Cumbrians used to describe most people) they’re media alright but they’re ours, back off!”
In those days you could tell a deep coal miner. Even though they had pit head baths to wash the coal dust out of their blackened bodies the inside of their eyelids were tattooed with a thin black line caused by the ingrained coal dust. They were determined, proud and had a sense of community. I knew miners as a television reporter, in the reserve army as fellow soldiers and later, some became magistrates alongside me. Their sense of right and wrong, and their humour taught me a great deal.
What brought all these memories flooding back? Thirty years since Haig Pit closed the UK government has just granted permission for the first deep coal mine to be ‘sunk’, which will provide coal for the steel industry. It’s sighted within a few miles of Haig Pit. With the debate surrounding global warming this is a hugely controversial decision which continues to rage. It will, say its advocates, provide up to 500 jobs.
It’s strange to think that if the new mine goes ahead the grandchildren of those long-gone miners could well find themselves following in their footsteps. How, I wonder, will today’s generation take to this way of life? It will, of course, be different but I suspect that deep down the mining tradition will still be there.
Hopeful Traveller is a weekly newsletter and archive of stories about broadcasting in the 1970s and 80s. It is written by former-newsreader and programme maker Paul Baird. For new stories each week, subscribe.