May/100
Lottery dream comes true for former mining town
The East Midlands town Newstead celebrated a £400,000 cash injection of lottery money to help revive the area.
Former mining town Newstead has been awarded money through a project called Village SOS. The scheme is ran by the Big Lottery Fund and the BBC.
The money will be put towards a ten year community plan which involves creating a country park on the site of a pit slag heap.
The scheme, titled Future Newstead, headed by Mick Leivers stated “It’s exciting times. As a community we worked our socks off to put ourselves in a good position to get lottery funding,” he added.
“Out of the selection process we were one of the most deprived villages in terms of finance and facilities.”
The nationwide scheme is supporting six projects, awarding money across the UK. Future Newstead will offer a variety of facilities including an eco-friendly resource centre, fishing lakes and music festival.
The development will spread across 220 acres of former colliery spoil heaps purchased in autumn last year that had been backed by an East Midlands Development Agency.
Mick Leivers is particularly positive about the development in fishing that could help in several ways.
“This was a really popular choice amongst local villagers.
“We will be providing training for young people interested in angling so we can perhaps professionalise some of the lakes around Nottinghamshire and provide, through fishing, a means for people to learn about their environment.”
A documentary
The Newstead SOS has been surrounded by much media inetrest. The village will be filmed by BBC cameras and a documentary is due to be screened in April 2011 to show how the scheme has changed the area.
Publicity surrounding the award is reaping benefitsWord of the award is already reaping benefits according the Mr Leivers.
“The number of volunteers we’ve had has been phenomenal. We set up a Facebook site and had 1600 members join within a matter of weeks. It’s obviously going to engage a lot of people.
“It’s all about the local community but also about bringing other people into the community to share our village and realise what a fantastic place Newstead really is.”
The community are backing the development 100% and believe it is a positive step towards Newsteads future. Tracey Sabin a local resident said: “The scheme is going to be a lifeline to the village. It’s going to provide Newstead with some level of pride that was taken away when the pit shut down [in 1987]. It’ll get the community alive and kicking again.”
Head of the East Midlands Region for the Big Lottery Fund, Mick McGrath, echoed the locals enthusiasm saying, “This Village SOS award will kick start a revival in the former mining village of Newstead, helping to secure the future of the community by putting power into the hands of the villagers.
“I hope that their innovative ideas, which will bring tourists to the area as well as teach positive activities to disengaged young people, will inspire others across the UK to reinvigorate their rural communities.”
May/100
As the Tories regain power after 13 years, one of the last pits closes
Tory Prime Ministers and coal mines seldom make for a story ending with the words “happily ever after”.
And as if on cue, David Cameron was settling in at No10 as the last shifts ended at Welbeck Colliery.
In the 80s it was arrogant Conservative policies that destroyed swathes of British industry and robbed so many communities of their proud prosperity.
Now for Welbeck, closing down after 98 years, it is something just as uncompromising - the seam of coal had simply run dry.
The Nottinghamshire mine opened in 1912. At its peak 1,400 men worked at the pit and nearly all lived in Meden Vale village.
Fathers, sons and brothers worked together, bathed together then drank together.
As a group of miners headed to the pit-head bath for the last time on Friday, one lad started to sing. It was a traditional mining song to the brave men who work the seam.
“It’s a sad, sad day,” said Gary Cox, 50, carrying the last lump of coal his shift brought to the surface.
“I have been here for 34 years, since I was 17. This has been my life. We are like a family here. It is a piece of history.”
Gary, a loco driver, followed his father Billy down the pit. They worked together for a few years before Billy retired. Father-of-four Gary said: “We both wanted to be the gaffer, to be in charge.
“But we enjoyed working together and I did learn a bit from him.”
Billy died last year aged 87. He lived long enough to hear the news the pit was to close. Gary said “He was sad that it was to shut and it’s a shame he didn’t live to see the final day today. Or maybe it isn’t. He had spent his life here, too.”
Welbeck had 400 employees when the decision was made to close it. Many of the final shifts finished on Friday and scores of men headed into nearby Mansfield for a farewell booze-up. Up to 60 of them have taken redundancy. The rest have been transferred to the three remaining UK Coal deep pits at nearby Thoresby, Daw Mill, close to Coventry, and Kellingley, North Yorks. Just two more big pits remain - at Maltby and Hatfield in South Yorkshire - along with a handful of smaller private concerns.
Manager Geoff Mountain said: “There were 220 deep mines when I began in 1979. It’s sad for Welbeck but work goes on elsewhere.
“We have plans for the site. You have great equipment here and it would be perfect for industry. We want to get that going so that will bring jobs to the area.”
Seventy men will stay behind for a few months to reclaim £6million of equipment from the works. The windings, symbol of mining history, will have to come down.
“Daft people will try to climb them,” said Geoff. “It’s dangerous.”
Softly spoken Tony Ambler, 49, looked back wistfully at the pit head as he left his last shift.
He had followed in his stepdad’s footsteps. Tony said: “He worked during the war, keeping supplies going.”
“Here we are a family. In the village we all knew each other. We grew up together and joined the pit together.
“Our friends and their dads were there. In the village, doors would be left wide open. There was no crime there. It’s changed a lot.
Everyone in the village works away. The character has changed.”
Mining is still a dangerous business. Just three years ago all were reminded of the perils inherent in the job.
On November 3, 2007, Paul Milner, 44, died when the shaft collapsed on him as he and three colleagues tried to remove a hydraulic roof support from an exhausted seam.
Ninety tons of earth fell, trapping him for five hours.
Gary said: “You do everything you can to get the man out. It hits you very hard because we are a family here. Losing someone is terrible but all know we have to carry on working.
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“It was a terrible day. We will always remember it.
“Everyone was superb that day. Mine rescue were there but we all know it will take hours to get to you. That is the reality.”
Neil Bradbury, 44, has served 23 years underground and sees an uncertain future. He has been transferred to Daw Mill and will have to drive 70 miles home each day after an arduous shift.
The father-of-three said: “It is a hell of a journey. But I have to keep working. We aren’t going to move. We were brought up here and the kids are settled. We can’t uproot them all from everything they know. I will have to do it.
“I could take the redundancy but there are no jobs out there.”
As the lads head off for a bath and a farewell pint, one of the last pieces of coal mined at Welbeck lies cracked and broken on the pit-head floor - the final discarded remnant of a discarded industry.
UK’s deep coal mines
KELLINGLEY, W YORKS
OPENED: 1960
EMPLOYS: 800
Future: In 2004, Coal Investment Aid Scheme pumped £7.2million into the mine.
THORESBY, NOTTS
OPENED: 1925
EMPLOYS: 700
Future is safeguarded until 2017 following a £55million investment from UK Coal.
DAW MILL, WARKS
OPENED: 1956
EMPLOYS: 680
Warwickshire once boasted 20 collieries but now there is just Daw Mill, which has a predicted lifespan of another 18 years.
MALTBY, S YORKS
OPENED: 1956
EMPLOYS: 500
Owned by transport firm Hargreave Services, it produces 1.2 million tonnes of coal a year.
HATFIELD, S YORKS
OPENED: 1920
EMPLOYS: 380
Closed in 2001 but reopened four years ago. Work is due to begin on a new coal-fired power station and industrial estate called Hatfield Power Park which promises cleaner, greener coal power.
Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/latest-news/celebs/2010/05/13/losing-a-coal-way-of-life-115875-22254745/
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