Coal can be a green fuel .. .. .. if only they had the foresight to see it back then; WALE 25th ANNIVERSARY OF MINERS STRIKE.

Byline: Rob Davies 

SPECIAL REPORT

With today being the 25th anniversary of the miners strike, Rob Davies asks if there is any future for the industry

AS soon as you dig the first shovelful, your pit is already dying, admits former miner Ted McKay.

Mines don't last forever and he accepts there has never been any prospect of a return to the glory days when 25,000 men in the Wrexham area alone worked below ground.

A time where whole villages such as Rhostyllen, Rhosllannerchrugog and Llay sprung up around the pitheads.

But the coal industry could have been scaled down without dying out, says Mr McKay, a former miner at the long-flattened Point of Ayr Colliery near Prestatyn and subsequently a senior NUM official.

He looks back with bitterness to the year-long 1984 miners' strike, the 25th anniversary of which falls today.

A lack of foresight and the dreadful leadership of Arthur Scargill are to blame for the collapse of the industry, he believes.

The irony is that coal is no longer necessarily the dirty, polluting fuel it once was.

These days, it can be extracted and burned much more cleanly and new markets are now opening up - as Mr McKay predicted would happen all those years ago.

With North Sea oil and gas running out and increased reliance on Russia and the Middle East, having a fuel supply of our own would be a valuable asset, he points out.

Unfortunately by the 1980s, coal was not valued by its only major customer - the National Grid for whom it was cheaper to generate electricity from gas.

Coal could not be produced profitably, losses ran at up to pounds 100ma year and as a result, one pit after another was closing for good.

But Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, deserves no credit for stating the obvious, says Mr McKay.

"The whole thing was a tragedy," he says at his home in Gwersyllt. "We had two strikes in the 1970s which were very successful because they had the consent and authority of miners to strike. Once they had got that majority, everybody else came into line, there was no animosity and no picketing the pits.

"But in 1984, Scargill didn't get the miners' consent before going out on strike. I said 'give the lads a ballot' and whatever they decide we will go along with it but there was a battle to be fought and won.

"What we should have done was to convince a very hostile government that itwas in the interests of Britain in the short and long term that we keep indigenous energy in Britain. It's what I said at the time.

"We needed a leader who had integrity, who would put the needs of the country first and the needs of the industry first. What we got was a Walter Mitty character called Arthur Scargill who had delusions of grandeur."

They didn't need Scargill to tell them that there was a hitlist of pits threatened with closure, he says - everyone knew that anyway.

"We should have recognised that coal was a pollutant and should have been arguing for a clean burn.

"Ifwe had gone at it in the rightway and convinced everybody of our cause, coal had a case to argue but nobody could hear it because of a smokescreen of simplistic statements bawled off platforms by Scargill.

"He was an orator and a good orator and he could make people march but he wasn't a negotiator."

The battle was fought with the fiery rhetoric of "rolling back the years of Thatcherism," says Ted McKay, without the democratic backing of the workforce.

And so the cause was lost, the Government won and the pits closure programme carried relentlessly on.

At the time of the 1984 strike, there were only two pits left in North Wales - Bershamand Point of Ayr. Bersham was shut in 1986 and Point of Ayr 10 years later.

Some of those who worked the mines of north-east Wales got jobs on the new industrial estates which mushroomed in the area.

Ironically, a generation on since the miners' strike, the firms which came in and helped fill the gap are themselves struggling as the economic downturn continues.

Indesit, the former Hotpoint factory in Bodelwyddan, is the latest casualty, closing only this week with the loss of 300 jobs - with production moving to eastern Europe.

In these circumstances, could there ever be a way back for coal?

The National Union of Mineworkers believes there may be.

It is confident that new technology could pave theway for a revival in coal mining, even though the industry has now been all but wiped out.

The union is urging the Government to carry out a feasibility study on work needed to open two new drift mines off the north-east coast at Seaburn and Amble which could potentially reach 400 million tonnes of coal and create up to 7,000 jobs.

A spokesman says: "We have the expertise, the skills and the reserves here and the opportunity is right there. All we are asking for is a feasibility study.

"I believe that coal can play a significant part in the regeneration of the economy, it could be a big part of the economy again for the next 50 years."

Research is currently under way to reduce harmful gases emitted when coal is burned which will make it a far greener fuel.

Ted McKay agrees that coal mining may still have a future. But the old mines have gone for good, he says.

And with them, the close-knit communities where families enjoyed kinship rarely found elsewhere.

HOW STRIKE BEGAN

ON March 1, 1984, the National Coal Board announced the closure of three collieries with the loss of 20,000 jobs.

A few days later, Yorkshire miners went on strike and subsequently Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, called on miners nationwide to strike in defence of jobs and against pit closures.

The strike pitted the miners against the coal board, the Government, the police and most of the national media, and finally against each other.

The Government wanted to end the power of the unions, to end the country's reliance on coal, and to cut the losses the coal industry made each year.

Locally Bersham Colliery went on strike, but the miners at Point of Ayr continued to work.

Many in the local community rallied to the miners' cause, but as the strike continued, miners suffered and divisions grew bitter as arguments raged over whether to fight on or go back to work.

Bersham miners returned to work in November 1984, but the strike's bitter legacy continued to divide people

OUR MINING HISTORY

THE story of coal mining in North Wales can be traced back to the Middle Ages.

As early as 1391, the Burgesses of Holt jealously guarded their right to dig for coal in the "wastes" of Brymbo and Coedpoeth.

In the 17th century, demand for coal grew as more houses had chimneys and coal mining expanded in the 18 th century.

Established industries such as the ironworks at Bersham started to use coal.

In Flintshire, lead smelters were established along the coast as it was easier to take the lead ore downhill than haul the coal uphill to the lead mines.

In the 19 th century, the railway age heralded coal's golden age, but he 20th century saw major strikes.

Nationalisation in 1947 was meant to herald a new dawn, but over time that contract between the miners and the coal board broke down.

As demand for coal fell during the 1970 s and 1980s, pit after pit were closed.

After the 19 84 strike, Bersham closed just two years later and Point of Ayr's finally went in 19 96 to end the legacy up here

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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CAPTION(S):

Ted McKay