This week, the attention of the whole of Wales was focused on events in the Swansea Valley. Four miners had been trapped by flooding in a small drift mine near Pontardawe, two had escaped the floods and one other miner (the mine supervisor) was critically injured and in hospital. Initially, there were hopes that the four trapped miners might be found safely, having taken refuge in an air pocket or a tunnel safe from the rising flood water.
By late on Friday, everyone's worst fears had been realised. All four trapped miners had been found dead and yet another page in the chequered history of the coal industry in South Wales had been written.
Coal Mining in the Swansea Valley
There has been no fatal mine accident in South Wales for a generation, mainly because very little coal mining still goes on. However, Gleision Colliery was a small drift mine with rich seams of anthracite, so was still profitable to work. Anthracite is the highest quality, highest value coal. Betws Colliery in nearby Ammanford continued to mine anthracite until it closed in 2003 and the anthracite region of South Wales is still dotted with small, privately owned mines.
The Swansea Valley has a long history of coal mining and heavy industry, but the region around Pontardawe also has a very treacherous geological structure. The Swansea Valley is a U-shaped valley, carved out by a glacier in the ice age (the distinctive shape of the valley can clearly be seen looking north from the Lower Swansea Valley). The coal field is bowl shaped, with the most accessible (and most economical) coal found towards the rim of the bowl; the coal seams are fractured and often difficult to mine. Anthracite tends to be found in areas that have been subjected to considerable amounts of earth movement, with small rich seams buried in treacherous underground galleries.
The Gleision miners were caught by a flood from an underground reservoir, when one of the walls of the mine where they were working caved in under pressure of water. The cost of coal has always been much greater than just the pounds, shillings and pence consumers pay for it.
Valley Communities and the Mining Culture
The history and culture of the South Wales Valleys is very much a history and culture of coal and heavy industry. Coal, steel production, copper works, tin-plate factories and other industrial installations are all part of the landscape and part of the everyday fabric of people's lives. Although many of the industries have now closed, some still remain, and the scars on the mountainsides serve as ever-present reminders of the recent past.
"How Green Was My Valley" is a defining fictional text written in the late thirties, which shows the start of the decline of the coal industry and the close knit valley communities. George Chapman's paintings also illustrate the changes in the landscape of the valleys over the last fifty years of the twentieth century. Today's South Wales is very different from that of the 1930s; call centres and tourist attractions have replaced pit heads and foundries. Some coal mines have even become tourist attractions, like Big Pit at Blaenavon, pictured below. A few erstwhile miners now act as tour guides for those curious about industrial archaeology and the way we used to live.
When all's said and done though, industrial South Wales is a part of the United Kingdom where well paid jobs are hard to come by. Mining is a job with a respected provenance and a certain amount of kudos within the community. The qualities of strength, team work and endurance are valued more underground and within the mining communities than in the increasingly technological world above ground. So, in the absence of anything better, men are prepared to work in dark and dangerous conditions underground to retrieve coal.
If coal mining was still an economically viable option, make no mistake, men would still be queuing up for mining jobs in South Wales, and the tragedy of the Gleision Pit would inevitably continue to be repeated throughout the working mines of the South Wales coalfield.
Source:
http://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/
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