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Lest We Forget Those Who Toil

Rene Kinzett remembers those who died in the tragic Gleision Colliery accident.

By Rene Kinzett

19 Sep 2011, 10:00

The media coverage of the tragic mining accident at the Gleision Colliery in Cilybebyll has been questioned by fellow Wales-based blogger, Alison Goldsworthy. I agree that the print media hasn't given enough space to the disaster during its unfolding horror and much of that is due to geographical bias. I also think that there is a massive disconnect between the South East of England/London-based media and the economic and social conditions in "far away" places like the South Wales Valleys.

Comments in the media and indeed in discussions with friends and colleagues in London and even in Swansea, proved to me that so many of us forget the realities of life working at the front-line of industrial Britain. South Wales is not just the land of call centres and EU-sponsored "regeneration" projects and the landscaping of former chemical works, but of dangerous jobs in factories, steelworks and mines. Only last week, an inquest in Swansea was hearing evidence about the death in 2006 of Kevin Downey,  a worker at the Port Talbot steelworks, who fell into 1,400 Celsius  molten slag  and was conscious when pulled out by colleagues. He had also risked his life to try to save three colleagues who perished during an explosion at the same steelworks in 2001.

The industrial workers of the UK only come to our attention at times of hardship and horror. The end of steel making at Redcar became an issue during the 2010 General Election and the ongoing scare stories about closures or drastic cuts in productions at the UK's remaining active steel mills, keeps the steel industry in the news. The other times I read and hear about Port Talbot steelworks, just across the other side of Swansea Bay to my office at County Hall, is when there are investigations into accidents and deaths at work.

Coal mining, by contrast, is now all but never mentioned in the media, not even in South Wales. Mining is seen as an historic issue, with museums and virtual theme parks dedicated to the memory of the industry. At Big Pit, near Newport, families can don reflective gear, put a helmet lamp on and descend down the entrance shaft of a former mine. All very jolly and a very interesting day out for the family. And clean and safe. I am not sure whether there will ever be a visitor attraction that aims to give tourists an experience of drift mining, crawling through tunnels in searing heat, with dirt, damp, noise and danger all on hand. If I am perfectly honest, I did not know that these working conditions still existed and only a few miles from Swansea's air-conditioned, health and safety checked offices of the local authority, the university and the DVLA.

The economic realities that force people to work in such dreadful conditions really need to be appreciated. My late grandfather, Stanley Hughes, left Merthyr in the mid-1920s, a boy of 16, to escape the back-breaking work and dangerous conditions of the mines. The local police force wouldn't take him on (on account of his flat feet) but the army was keen to recruit, so he went off round the world to serve King and Country in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. His diaries describe his time mining in Merthyr from the age of 14 as simply horrid. The dirt, the injuries and the sheer exhaustion suffered by those who toiled underground to keep our factories running, our homes heated and our empire defended come across in his accounts so vividly. Reading the accounts of the colleagues who worked with the dead men at the Gleision Colliery, you would not think that some 90 years have passed since my grandfather's time down the mines.

The conditions may be tough, but what choice is there in an area that has been left out of any major efforts to retrain the workforce or to attract new industries? The piecemeal "regeneration projects" (a term which now engenders cynicism and disappointment) and gimmicks like Communities First have done nothing to improve the prospects for workers in South Wales. Friends of mine have had to uproot a number of times to move where the work is; sometimes coming full circle, having started their careers in South Wales, moving to the North East of England, only to have to come all the way back to where they started in South Wales.

It is fashionable for white-collar workers to scoff at the 'Elf'n'Safety culture. But families in industrial areas such as South Wales rely on rigorously applied work-place standards. We don't yet know what has happened in Gleision Colliery or what caused the horrific accident which has claimed the lives of four men, but it is a telling reminder that the British economy is not solely based on the distributive sectors and the City of London. Whilst our current focus is on that Square Mile and banking reform, we must not forget the communities that send their men to risk their lives every day to earn a living.