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And now the game's over: Kellingley miners finish final shift And now the game's over: Kellingley miners finish final shift
(about 1 hour later)
The lobby of the Kellingley colliery was thick with cameras as the final shift at the country’s last deep coalmine came to an end. The lobby of the Kellingley colliery was thick with cameras as the last shift at the country’s last deep coalmine came to an end. A man in high-vis orange walked through, his trousers cut down to shorts, a few inches of coal-dusted thigh showing over the thickest boots; goggled, gloved, protected and unprotected. The coal clogs the miners’ eyes like eyeliner, so that they look incongruously showbiz.
A man in high-vis orange walked through, his trousers cut down to shorts, a few inches of coal-dusted thigh showing over the thickest boots; goggled, gloved, protected and unprotected. Mining is an industry full of contradictions - it’s dangerous, arduous work but people love it. The heat and the humidity take an entire career to get used to, but what everyone talks about is their relationship with their colleagues. The majority started straight from school, and “there’s quite a lot ‘as never wanted to leave,” Donna Rees, 49, observed, later on at the Knottingley Miners’ welfare scheme social club. Nobody’s parents wanted them to go down a mine, yet that’s how so many spent their own lives.
Related: Kellingley colliery closure: 'shabby end' for a once-mighty industry “When they come out of the mine,” said Keith Poulson, the 55-year-old National Union of Mineworkers representative, “what they’ll be wanting to do is shake each other’s hands, because they might never see each other again.” While many of the 450 miners here live in Pontefract, there are men from as far as Durham and Wales. “They did what Norman Tebbit told them to do,” Poulson carried on, “They got on their bike. They followed the industry from closure of pit to closure of pit. And this industry has just thrown them on the scrap heap.”
Mining is an industry full of contradictions – it’s dangerous, arduous work but people love it. The majority started straight from school and never left. Nobody’s parents wanted them to go down a mine, yet that is how so many spent their own lives. Related: Kellingley closure: last coalminers to resurface as way of life disappears
“When they come out,” said Keith Poulson, the 55-year-old National Union of Mineworkers representative, “what they’ll be wanting to do is shake each other’s hands, because they might never see each other again.” In 2013, the decision was made to close Kellingley colliery; Yvette Cooper, though hers is the neighbouring constituency, describes a series of attempts to save it, including finding investors, a workforce buy-out and applying for EU state aid. “It would have been very easy,” Cooper said, “for the miners to walk away two years ago and the government would have been left with the closure costs.” But they didn’t; instead, they worked to fund the closure and find themselves with a meaner redundancy package than they would have got under Margaret Thatcher. She boosted the statutory amount (12 weeks of average pay) with a £900 per working year deal that’s been rescinded, and the pension deal has been eroded too, with those Kellingley miners having to retire early taking a proportional hit to their annuity income for the rest of their lives. It is bizarre to think of Margaret Thatcher’s as the more generous spirited government, but there it is.
While many of the 450 miners live in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, there are men from as far as Durham and Wales. “They did what Norman Tebbit told them to do,” Poulson added, “They got on their bike. They followed the industry from closure of pit to closure of pit. And this industry has just thrown them on the scrapheap.” Chris Atkinson, 57, emerged and swiped himself out of the mine for the last time. He was in a rush to get to the hospital, “only small things wrong with me, but all work-related, yes.” He’d just left school when he started here, and only meant to stay six months. “I enjoyed the money when I were a young lad, and I liked the camaraderie later. I just think we’ve been stung.” Mark Phelan, 46, said “it’s like losing part of your family, like grieving. You watch each other’s backs down pit and you wash each other’s backs when you come out.” He intends to open a sandwich bar, and shook his head, smiling: “it’s going to be totally, unbelievably different.”
In 2013, the decision was made to close the Kellingley colliery; Yvette Cooper, though hers is the neighbouring constituency, described a series of attempts to save it, including finding investors, a workforce buyout and applying for EU state aid. Many people tried to pin down the bond between people working in the colliery - whether it was working in close proximity, having each other’s backs, being in high risk work. Part of it is the opacity: nobody who isn’t in it could possibly know what it’s like.
“It would have been very easy,” Cooper said, “for the miners to walk away two years ago and the government would have been left with the closure costs.” But they didn’t. Instead, they worked to fund the closure and found themselves with a meaner redundancy package than they would have got under Margaret Thatcher. She boosted the statutory amount (12 weeks of average pay) with a £900 per working year deal that has been rescinded, and the pension deal has been eroded too. The alternatives for those who want to remain in heavy industry are predictably few. Two of the three local power stations are also slated to close. There’s a glassworks, which nobody hangs a huge amount of hope on, though 31-year-old electrician, Jonathan Davis, had an interview there straight after his last shift finished. Otherwise, there’s a small amount of agriculture, a bit of distribution.
Related: The Guardian view on the end of deep mining: adieu to the aristocracy of the working class | EditorialRelated: The Guardian view on the end of deep mining: adieu to the aristocracy of the working class | Editorial
“It doesn’t feel like we’re finishing,” said John Gray, 41. “It feels like we’re breaking up for Christmas. We’ve been coaling as usual.” At the social club, Chloe Nadin, 16, Brandon Merchant, 17 and Sydney Brooks, 16 were helping out at the Christmas party for retired miners. Nadin wants to be a midwife and work abroad; Merchant wants to go to Magaluf as a tour rep; Brooks wants to work on cruise liners. “When I came out of school,” Merchant said, “there were no jobs. It’s going to be harder for them that’s known nothing but the colliery.”
His colleague and friend Andrew Webb, 50, said: “It’s the end of an era, and the beginning of an error.” Webb started mining in Kent before moving to Stillingfleet, North Yorkshire, which closed in 2004, and ending up here. “I’m the last Kentish miner,” he added, wryly. “Most of them we were at school with are commuting to Leeds or Wakefield, but [of the miners] they’re too old to be travelling all that way for a job. There’s nothing round here for us,” Nadin agreed. “There’s nothing round here for anyone.” Inside, the previous generation of miners watched a stand-up comedian. “The people that’s done this club up is members,” Rees said of the cavernous, tongue-and-grooved and lino hall that, if it were in London, with no alternation, would be a pop-up lindyhop club. “I think the community will keep it together, they’ve got to.”
If you believe in keeping fossil fuels in the ground, you should be pleased, in theory. Except that the power plant at Drax in nearby Selby will continue to burn coal, about 4m tons a year, which it has imported from America and Colombia. There were a couple of voices of determined good cheer. Davis, with the glassworks interview, said “new year, new start. I’m ready for a new challenge.” “It doesn’t feel like we’re finishing,” said John Gray, 41. “It feels like we’re breaking up for Christmas. We’ve been coaling as usual. I suppose it will sink in once we don’t come back.” But his colleague and friend, Andrew Webb, 50, said “It’s the end of an era, and the beginning of an error.” Webb started mining in Kent, before moving to Stillingfleet, which closed in 2004, and ending up here. “I’m the last Kentish miner,” he said, wryly. “I go back down to Kent and look at the pit villages: when the mine was running, we had welfare clubs, sports teams, the pubs were booming. The villages were self-policing because of the hierarchy of the mine. Now a lot of those villages are overrun with drug culture. People are just looking to be numbed from everyday reality.”
“If we got the subsidies that nuclear power gets,” Poulson said, “we could afford to mine this field, give it away free and still make a profit. Is that a level playing field?” Like all the exiting miners, he is carrying a great big bag of stuff, boots, bright orange, black-smeared clothes, and a Davy lamp, which he pulled out to show me. It’s impossible to believe it serves a practical purpose, it looks like an exhibit from the V&A. “This?” he said indignantly. “It’s incredibly sensitive. The smallest flame it can read is 1.4% of methane. If oxygen falls below 17%, it’ll go out. I think the next time that’ll be lit will be at my funeral.”
Not really, from any angle, and now the game’s over. If you believe in keeping fossil fuels in the ground, you should be pleased, in theory; except that the power plant at Drax in nearby Selby will continue to burn coal, in the amount of 4 million tons a year, which it has imported from America and Colombia. Its owners point out that it wasn’t their idea to close down the UK coal industry.
In a statement, it’s “because of European environmental legislation (the Industrials Emissions Directive) which requires significant cuts in the emissions of things like sulphur and nitrogen oxide. The foreign-sourced coals have fewer of these impurities.” It’s an insight into the unintended consequences of these regulations, that obeying them while continuing to use coal means shipping it huge distances, which does nothing to cut emissions. Keith Poulson simply will not accept that more couldn’t have been done. “If we got the subsidies that nuclear power gets, we could afford to mine this field, give it away free and still make a profit. Is that a level playing field?” Not really, from any angle; and now the game’s over.