WEBSITE- swminers.co.uk PHONE- 01639 851833 E MAIL- info@swminers.co.uk
This award winning museum in the heart of the beautiful Afan Valley where men once tunneled for coal. Learn about the history and hardships of coal mining! South Wales Miners Museum portrays the life of a coal miner and the hardships they endured. From early coal mining days when children worked underground to the jobs they had to face through to more modern day mining. Let us guide you through the museum along with many interactive panels and activities for visitors. The museum offers Educational packages and outreach sessions for all ages. As a testament South Wales Miners Museum won the 2017 Queen's Award for Voluntary Service.
Entry Charges are: Adults: £3.00 Concessions: £2.00 Children :£2.00 Under 5’s: FREE Also follow us on Twitter twitter.com/swminersmuseum Instagram @south_wales_miners_museum_
That's not right. We all knew the NUM would have another go at the Tories and the Tories knew that too, it was very obvious. When Arthur Scargill took over from Joe Gormley the script was written and we all gave a half worried chuckle. Joe Gormley was an old fashioned Trade Unionist, the deal was the thing, and he got a good deal from Thatcher just before leaving. Scargill was a revolutionary, he wasn't interested in a deal he wanted to destroy the Thatcher Government just as the Heath Government has been destroyed. And never mind the damage to industry and wages that the 3 day week and the blackouts had caused. In short, who was the enemy of the miners? Scargill was his name.
My father worked in st John's in maesteg !!! then he got taken up to glyncorrwg after getting trapped and hurt by a rockfall under ground in st John's. I am a Baitup and my father was called "Mel Baitup" . He was young and was learning to be an explosives man till the collapse, it squashed his friend too . I wonder if any of you can remember that ??? He must've been down there in the 60 maybe . Wish I knew more about that era of his life . I also wish I could see where he worked back then because he said to me that it was the most scary and dangerous place he'd ever been to work. In south pit glyncorrwg he worked above ground in the offices and was the man who came around to see how much coal you've pulled out of the ground. If any of his friends had a bad week and didn't bring much up he'd lie and say they brought up more coal so their pay wasn't lessened .
The miners were fighting to save their jobs, their industry and their communities. Unfortunately, their leader, Arthur Scargill wasn't. HE was fighting to bring down the Thatcher government - and the miners couldn't see that. They followed him like lemmings over the cliff edge. KING ARTHUR? Do me a favour!!!
Yes, the miners were fighting for their industry & their communities. Unfortunately that is not what Arthur Scargill was fighting for - he was fighting to bring down the Thatcher government, just as they Heath government had been brought down before. It is unfortunate that the miners were led by such an arrogant self-serving man as Scargill. A better leader of the miners, FOR the miners might have achieved a better outcome. Thatcher was well prepared for the strike - the stockpiles of coal at the power stations had been built up to an all time high. Scargill walked right into her trap. 80% of the country's miners were on strike - If Scargill had called a national ballot the result would have been a majority for a strike and ALL coalfields would have stopped working - the arrogance of Scargill made him think he was above having a ballot. As Neil Kinnock said - "Thatcher and Scargill deserved each other - the miners didn't".
all these guys still moaning 40 years later i have known combat vets who have been in intense combat that dont moan like these twats get over it you where beaten and thats is it stop crying about it
Let’s not forget lack of support from the TUC and the Labour Party class traitors busy ‘appealing to the middle classes’. At least I voted for Michael Foot in 1983 , my conscience is clear.
''Not very good coal !' - What nonsense ! Welsh Steam Coal mined in the Rhondda and Eastern valleys was exported worldwide fom Barry, Cardiff and Newport docks. It was used extensively by the Great Western Railway and was sought after as the best coal suited for locomotives and ships boilers. It burned efficiently, forming a homogenous mass of heat output yet with very low ash. 'Tredegar Coal' as it was called was once in worlwide demand such that many foreign navies felt disadvantaged without it.
There was no Ballot , which split the Union and severely damaged the Miners cause with the public. The Miners were fighting for their communities. But the Union leadership were using them to bring the Government down.
No. There is no need for anyone on strike, to attend their workplace, in order to strike. You can stay at home, watch TV, and STILL strike. Why did these strikers attend their workplace?
Thatcher was fighting for a certain demographic of the country and was happy to leave the rest rot away. These mining communities are still suffering all the years later .
This whole thing about Thatcher gunning for the miners is load of old bollocks that is still peddled now. Forget figureheads. This had been on the cards for years. Why do I know this? Dennis Healey told us on 30 Sep 1976: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RpKz54bxXuU.html
Unfortunately for the miners, Th****er had the perfect man in Scargill - she goaded him into the strikes & he wasn't clever enough to side step it. I'm not saying Scargill was an idiot, but his heart ruled his head & he should've handled it better. If you compare him to Mick Lynch, there is a world of difference in keeping your head. As a young lad in the Midlands, my Dad worked in Drakelow C Power Station & I could see it from the 7-8 miles away from my home. I remember the coal stocks well over the height of the cooling towers & mountains of coal wouldn't have been a bad description. I felt really bad for the miners (having grown up in an old mining village) & there was a lot of grief at the time, like _The Battle of Orgrieve_ & the injustices of Th****er's underhand secret policing. Even as a young kid, I admired the striking lads, I really did. As a nation, something was lost with the end of the strike & things went downhill from there. Th****er was an absolute cancer & plague on the country & it truly is a disaster that the miners didn't win the war. You & your families will be remembered for what you tried to do for yourselves, your communities & for the country.
@@JamesRichards-mj9kwReally. Didn't know Farage, Tice, Cameron, _The Lying Clown_ et al were members. Not sure why you're wasting my time with this though, I didn't say anything about the biggest own goal in history.
@@old_seadog Labour's one-sided devolution broke up the UK, and caused Brexit. If the autistic Brown had not reneged to Labour's manifesto promise to hold a referendum we would still be in the right-wing Thatcherite EU.
3 governments taken down by miners strikes the three day week, rolling blackouts ,the winter of discontent. Going begging to the IMF for a bailout in 1976 , thatcher was elected on a union busting ticket she made no secret of it and the public voted for that after strikes had annoyed the public all through the 1970s. I voted for thatcher it was the first time I voted , put that down to what you did in the 1970s
Harold Wilson shut down far more pits than Margaret Thatcher did, yet Thatcher is the one that gets demonised? The truth is that in 1980s Britain, nobody wanted to buy the coal; industry didn't want the filthy stuff, power generators didn't want it and households didn't want it. Trying to keep the coal industry alive was an exercise in futility that was costing the country billions.
If Arthur Scargill had arranged a vote to call out a miners' national strike, he might have won, but he didn't have the guts, because he knew that the Nottingham miners would not back him. He led that unofficial strike, which was, in the end, his downfall. He deserved everything that led to his union's downfall, and to the industry. Thatcher played her hand when she knew that the power stations had plenty of coal, and Scargill reaped the bitter reward.
I remember listening a TV interview of two miners at the time of the strikes. One was on strike and the other was not. They were both asked why they held their position. The striking miner said that he was fighting to ensure his son still had a job going down the pit. The non-striking miner said that he was not striking to ensure his kids had an education so that they never had to go down the pit. Regressive vs. progressive thinking. That was the turning point for me.
Of course she did ; she was no mug. Scargill was a Marxist menace. Britain's coal mines had been steadily shedding workers since the beginning of the 50s.
"Labour closed 236 coal mines in the 70s. For the good of the country!! Vote Labour!!! Thatcher closed 115 coal mines. This is Fascism!! Vote Labour!!!." This is pretty much the feeling of every British coal miner. Mindless leftist hypocrites. Labour closed 236 coal mines, they still voted labour, and when Thatcher closed half that amount, they yelled "Fascist" and whinge about it to this day.
The UK embraced socialism after WW2. Labour created the NHS and nationalised the Steel & Mining industry because they were not economically viable. The unions in these industries constantly striked for higher wages due to high inflation. Governments generally conceded to the wage demands. by 1976 the game was up.The UK was broke.The IMF gave the biggest loan ever (at that point) $3.9 billion. to the UK. 8 years later the Miners went on strike because they wanted the taxpayer to bail out uneconomic mines. the UK was still broke. Germany used the Marshall plan money to replace heavy industry with light industry making consumer goods. Britain used the marshall money for bailouts thus kicking the can down the road.When the cash ran out Maggie was in power. Port talbot is the final casualty of can kicking.
In her defense, she was way ahead of her time in terms of ending the use of fossil fuels. And she made the economy recognisable from the mess that was the 1970s. And she put a lot of Tory elites in their place.
@@zenzombie72she was a asset stripper that deregulated the banks while maintaining Keynesianism for the wealthy... But now with nothing remaining what comes next?
@@zenzombie72 She got rid of the British Coal industry and imported our coal from Russia and apartheid South Africa instead. At the time it wasn't allowed to use gas to generate electricity and the Tory government of the day changed that and allowed all the newly privatised energy companies to plow through our gas to make electricity. Google "The dash for gas". It wasn't till much later that renewables started to make a difference in our energy production. So we moved basically from coal fossil fuel to gas fossil fuel. As I write this, we are importing 42% of our energy needs through imported gas (16.6%) and interconnection to six European countries (26%). Tonight is a good night for wind at nearly 40%.
I imagine you have very little understanding of economics. Let's say that the mines had never been nationalised. What power would Mrs Thatcher, or the Labour governments before her who closed more mines than her, have in closing coal mines?
For the miner to say nothing happened in South Wales such as throwing stones. A taxi driver was murdered by two miners in Merthyr who threw a rock through his car windscreen when he was taking a working miner to work.
An add to that the taxi driver ha d just ripped out his mother's kitchen and all she had was a cold tap on the walll he was taking the next week off to put a new kitchen in for her often wonder what happened she was about 75 .....the concrete block hit the driver in the chest the 2 miners got 6 years for manslaughter...
