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A moving and eloquent story of life down the pit

PETER LAZENBY is impressed by the memoirs of a former miner at Agecroft colliery, which closed its doors in 1990

The Last Pit In The Valley

by Paul Kelly

(Unity Publishing Project, £5)

 

Paul Kelly was just a lad of 11 when he joined his first picket line.

It was during the 1972 miners’ strike. His dad, Ivor, worked at Agecroft colliery, outside Manchester.

He’d been with his dad to the miners’ welfare for food parcels.

One day he “wagged” off school and walked to the pit to join his dad on the picket line.

As it happened his dad had finished his picketing stint.

The pickets asked him who he was and when he told them the shout went up: “It’s Ivor’s lad!”

They gave him a cup of tea and black pudding. When he said he’d finished his first shift picketing, they laughed and gave him his bus fare home.

Four years later, aged 15, he became a miner at Agecroft. Once again he was called “Ivor’s lad,” a name that remained for some time. That was the way at the pit for miners’ sons.

Agecroft shut in 1990 as the Tories implemented their grand plan for the destruction of the National Union of Mineworkers and Britain’s coal mining industry.

But the story of Agecroft lives on in a new book, The Last Pit in the Valley, written by Paul Kelly.

He says he hopes the book “will educate, enlighten and remind people that not so long ago this area had a thriving mining community.”

The book does that and more.

The day he signed his training contract with the National Coal Board he also joined the National Union of Mineworkers and was given his union badge. It was one of his proudest moments and today he still wears the badge as a prized possession.

He records his early days at the pit: the breath-taking first drop in the cage to the pit bottom; the “snap” break, with sandwiches covered in coal dust.

After three weeks as a teenage miner he sat down exhausted after a heavy stint shovelling spilled coal back onto a conveyor. One of the miners said: “Bloody hard work this, eh young ’un? But it’s worth it.” The youngster asked what he meant.

“This coal goes to the boilers at Pendlebury children’s hospital,” the older miner replied.

“This had a profound effect on me,” said Paul. “I had never thought where the coal ended up. I got up with a new-found strength and got stuck in.”

The Last Pit in the Valley details, movingly and eloquently, the working lives of miners, day to day life underground, the dangers, the dependence of miners on each other for their survival, the comradeship and solidarity which sprang from such dependence.

In the 1970s Agecroft was one of more than 100 pits in northern England — all targeted by the Tories for destruction, along with their communities.

The pit, which was sunk in 1844, fell victim along with the rest.

Paul became carer for his wife who suffered ill-health and died ten years ago. He also brought up their three young children.

His life today reflects the principles which working at the pit, and living in a mining community, taught him — solidarity, responsibility for the welfare of others.

He is a well-known and highly-respected political and community activist.

One of his comrades is George Tapp, the blacklisted construction worker who was run down by a motorist last year as he handed out anti-blacklisting leaflets in Manchester.

They both translate their politics into practical action.

They helped organise a convoy of aid from Manchester to Gaza in 2009 following Israel’s Operation Cast Lead attacks.

They are part of a team based at their friend Adeeb Ahmed’s Saffron restaurant at Cheetham Hill in Manchester, serving meals once a week to victims of heartless cuts and austerity.

There’s a project locating and restoring Lancashire’s pit union banners through the Irwell Valley Mining Project (IVMP), of which Paul is secretary.

Through IVMP, local school students and apprentices designed and built a miners’ memorial at Agecroft.

The work continues. And the spirit of Agecroft lives on.

 

The Last Pit in the Valley, ISBN 978-0-9928639-1-3, costs £5 plus pp, contact www.ivmp.org

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