00:10
[MALE VOICE] …But far as we’re concerned, but we go back in the knowledge that there's no agreement being forced on us and of course they don't think any of us, any rank and file member, up and down the country, would have wanted Scargill or the National Executive, then, to go on their knees and grovel for a settlement, then, off the National Coal Board.
00:33
[MALE VOICE] If we win the strike, we’ll gain all our objectives, as far as I'm concerned, and our main objectives are to get investment in the pit and recruitment.
00:43
[FEMALE VOICE] We got to try and fight to keep this community going and, you know, until, well, the last breath in our body, then…
00:49
[FEMALE VOICE] I’ll fight, tooth and nail, with every one of ‘em, with every miner and miner’s wife, to keep the NUM.
00:56
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] If the mining industry goes from these valleys, there is nothing left, and the miners of South Wales realise this. That's why the strike is more solid in South Wales than anywhere else, ‘cause, er, the fight, or the battle, is about communities and about people's lives. Nothing else in South Wales.
01:20
[FEMALE VOICE] I know more people in Penrhiwceiber now, than I've known all the years I've lived ‘ere. I've seen them, you know them by sight, but you never really knew them as people but you do now. I think Mrs Thatcher thought she would split us apart, but my God, she underestimated the women, because instead of that, we just banded together.
01:49
[FEMALE VOICE] A lot of these people, that are saying, that the pits are being run down have never even been down a mine, have they, so they don' really know.
01:59
[FEMALE VOICE] We’re a close family, and the valleys will help one another and as long as we stay together, we’ve got a chance. We've got a chance!
02:14
[FEMALE VOICE] I’ve joined this dispute and fought in it to save my own community and save my own valley. I've never wanted to live anywhere else, but then I'd like to see people being able to, to work here. To me, the colliery in Penrhiwceiber, when that wheel is turning, it's the heart of this valley, and when it stops, the valley stops.
[CHATTER OF FILM CREW]
02:45
[WOMAN ON STREET] Filmin' again?
[MAN ON STREET] Pardon?
[WOMAN ON STREET] I was asking if they’re filmin' again.
[MAN ON STREET] Ah. [Laughing]
03:14
[MAN] Grampy up the house?
[WOMAN] Yes.
[MAN] He alright?
[WOMAN] Aye.
[MAN] Gasping, gasping is he?
[WOMAN] Gasping for breath he is.
[MAN] Going down the road first are you?
[WOMAN] The road, ah.
[MAN] I’ll be pop after to see you.
[WOMAN] Ah?
[MAN] I’ll be up after to see you.
[WOMAN] Alright. What you doin’, taking photos?
[MAN] Yeah, taking photos, aye.
[WOMAN] I’ve spoilt it now you’ve had it. [CHUCKLES]
03:37
[VOICE OF JACK BURKE] I can remember 1921 strike, I just started to work, then, and they come out on strike. We was down on that tip, down b’there, where what they’re doing now, we done in 1921, then we done in 1926, now it’s the good old days, ‘84 and their bloody doing it, now. We were good boys during the war, we had flags flying on top of there, look. You get out of bed in the back bedroom in Pentwyn and you’d see a flag up there, people going into it and everything, what ‘appened? That’s all I’ve had in my life, is wars and strikes.
04:26
[FEMALE VOICE] Don’ matter if you’re a teacher or whatever your job is, if, if you don't stick together, you've got nothing, nothing, because this, this type of government would take their, they’re doing their damnedest, this is what they’re doing now, trying to take the, the unions away from the working class 'cause that's the only way the poor buggers got a chance to fight is to keep the unions together, that's what ‘ave helped them through all the years, but people don't see that, you know, they’re striking, they’re striking, where people never strike unless there's a real good reason, but when you get striking men, not for a bloody rise, but for the want of work, but to want to work, striking because they want to work.
05:05
[VOICE OF NEWS READER] Hundreds of pickets have been out at collieries in South Wales this morning as miners, have again, gone into work, Martin Shankleman reports.
05:12
[VOICE OF MARTIN SHANKLEMAN] Nearly a thousand have been out this morning, throughout the South Wales coalfield but there's been little trouble.
05:17
[VOICE OF INTERVIEWER] Can you tell me why you think it's important to be up here today, Idris?
05:19
[IDRIS SMITH ON CAMERA] We all want jobs to go back to, and that this man is doing what we don’t want people to do in South Wales, is go back to work. I mean, as far as we’re concerned, the man’s a scab. And the only way we're going to keep our jobs in South Wales is for everybody to stay solid and to picket like this and get these men out of work.
05:40
[VOICE OF INTERVIEWER] And do you think this is important for the cause of Penrikyber pit?
05:44
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] Oh, vital, vital for Penrikyber pit, a lot of our stuff goes into this, to this plant, and it’s keeping work for the rest of the people in the valley.
05:54
[MALE VOICE] You couldn’t have much more of a crisis than in a small mining community, a village, in South Wales, a mining village in 1984. We gotta look around the streets to see the condition of the houses and the roads, the schools and the hospitals. And that in itself is an object lesson in, um, politics because people need to take it for granted, Thatcher thinking, need to take it for granted that there are certain standards that are everywhere, standards of living, but they’re not. I mean, the only thing that we've got going for us, in the mining areas, is a community and if the pit is taken away before we are good and ready for it to be taken away, we'll never change and improve the living condition in this particular valley.
06:47
[FEMALE VOICE] We are only working class people and we don't ask much of life. Surely, that woman was put in power to give us a chance to give something back to this country. Well, it's all we're asking for is work, it’s not a lot to ask for, for work. We're all cogs in the wheel and if we don't work together, we don't get anywhere. People have shut down shops in Penrhiwceiber, now, since the strike, what then, if all these pits shut, that means there’ll be never any work ‘ere, so what price are the rest of the shops, that are just hanging on by their teeth?
07:21
[FEMALE VOICE] I mean, if you wanted to sell your house, you can't, I mean, there’s people up living by me that have had their house up for sale for two years or more and they've had about one person enquiring, 'cause no one wants to come to a dead valley. And they’re all afraid, you know, of what will happen now, if the collieries do close.
07:56
[MALE VOICE] I think every man that was here this morning felt exactly the same, they had a lump in their stomach, going in through these gates.
08:03
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] As far as the Coal Board and the government saying it, they’ll offer the greatest redundancy payments in the history of British industry. Money is no good to us, we want a livelihood. We want to earn our own livelihood and we want to look after our families and bring up our families the way we've been brought up ourselves, with dignity. And we want to go to work every morning, even though it's down that pit, there, and it's a stinking, horrible place to work, we want to go there with dignity.
08:41
[FEMALE VOICE] It’s like we’re a community above ground and they’re a community of their own below ground. You know, they’re, er, oh, I don't know, I think they’re something special.
09:00
[FEMALE VOICE] You can be a clever person, but a lot of men have gone underground and one ride in a carriage is enough for ‘em, and to work in that thick, dirty smoke, they say, “oh they’re modernised, now”. I don't believe for one minute, maybe one or two of them, but not a hell of a lot of ‘em are not modernised, no.
09:18
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] It’s gotta be said, I think, that Welsh coal is the finest coal in the British coalfield. There's no other area in the British coalfield can match the quality of Welsh coal and yet it's the Welsh coalfield that they want to decimate. They want to get rid of 22 pits in the next five years and these 22 pits are producing the finest coal in the British coalfield. And when we go and ask for reasons for it, we're just given the economic rubbish, economic rubbish. Figures that are just juggled about by accountants, up in Hobart House, that don’t know a piece of coal from a bucket of… [CHUCKLES]
10:01
[FEMALE VOICE] Well, it’s, it’s excellent coal, there's no other word for it, what they burn on the grates, now, the Welsh coal, I'm talking about, ‘ave always been, that supposed to ‘ave been the best household coal in the world, supposed to be. So why do they want they take it away, then, is it, you know, why?
10:15
[MALE VOICE] Prior to the strike, we've had lorries coming in from all over the country, taking it as fast as we can mine it. We don't seem to have any trouble getting rid of the coal from the ‘Kyber.
10:30
[MALE VOICE] We've got the phurnacite market, which is right on our doorstep. Any domestic market, we can satisfy and of course, the markets are unlimited in Penrhiwceiber, anything we produce in Penrhiwceiber, we can sell.
10:46
[MALE VOICE] If the Coal Board had a grain of sense in their head, they’d invest in that colliery and pursue that coal, because it can be a money winner.
10:58
[MALE VOICE] Now, they’ve had investigations into Penrikyber Colliery, why it cannot produce coal, and those investigations have been carried out by independent members of the Coal Board and independent members of the Union, and on both occasions, the workmen of Penrikyber Colliery have been exonerated. The problems have been clearly related to bad management and bad planning. If you had good management and good planning and investment in Penrikyber, it’s got the reserves and the product to make it viable and a future for the people in the community.
11:40
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] I done a lot of work on the surface over holiday times and, um, looking at the materials, especially the conveyors on top of the pit and the short carriers only got to go small distances, same as the bunkers and everything, they're all, they’re from your time, Jack. Most of the conveyor work, on top of the pit, bunkers, is from your time. Well, it's still using in our time in’ they, and for the future, we gotta use them 'cause they're not, they're not going to spend money there.
12:08
[MALE VOICE] You’d have some days, now, you’d start off, start the morning off, der, the coal be coming back great, we’re going to have a nice day today, I would like to see the coal coming back, lovely, great. All of a sudden, bang. What’s the trouble? Oh, the washery have broke down or the creepers ‘ave broke and I said, you’d have that every time and that's where the N.C.B. should've been putting money into the pit, to counteract that, innit, but they never did.
12:37
[MALE VOICE] I was on top of the pit, one day and there was an N.C.B. top official come around the pit, inspecting machinery. What the ‘ell, he said, you got 1982, ‘83 underground machinery, he said, but on top, he said, it’s 1926 bloody machinery, what do you expect? Course, I wasn’t suppose’ to overhear this but I did ‘ear it.
13:06
[MALE VOICE] We get machinery in our colliery, that's 15, 20 years old, it's been dipped in a bit of white undercoat paint an’ it’s made to look new. You know, conveyor belt systems, um, coal cutting machines, motors, gearboxes, things like that, you know, it's all hand-me-downs, it’s just been dipped in a bit of undercoat to make it look nice, so you think, well it’s a new machine, it'll be alright, but within a couple of months that machine is run into the ground, it’s no good.
13:34
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] We've actually got a wash box in the surface, which is where the coal is washed. It is a box, a very large box that’s flooded with water and the coal travels through it to be washed. Now, our actual wash box, there is none of the original wash box left, it's all, it's just a, it's like a patchwork quilt then, of patches where it's been repaired time and time again and there's actually none of the original wash box left. The N.C.B. argued, argued with us, that we must get into a profitable situation before they’ll give us the investment. Well, it’s, it’s like putting the cart before the horse, we try our best, we, God knows how the people on the surface keep the place going, it's a miracle they keep it going, for any length of time at all. We've got the skill, we've got the ingenuity, we've, we're probably the greatest improvisers in the world.
14:36
[VOICES FROM CAGE, INDISTINCT, GOOD-NATURED SHOUTING]
14:52
[MALE VOICE] If we was given the proper machinery, the proper equipment, our colliery would be the finest colliery around ‘ere. We’ve got the coal, we’ve got 30 years reserves of coal in our colliery, it’s just they won't spend the money, that’s what it all boils down to.
15:42
[MALE VOICE] They're just walking the roads, they’re screaming for jobs. You ‘ear of boys, people saying that, who likes to work underground? But a job is a job, init? I'd rather be underground than walking the roads, an’ you’ve got youngsters in Penrhiwceiber, by ‘ere, that’s all they do all day, they’re just either sat in the café or they’re playing snooker in the Workman’s Hall, nothing else to do. I think the last time we had recruitment in Penrhiwceiber was six years ago, two boys we took, in six years, no recruitment at all. We want men on development, we still got men in Penrhiwceiber on development who are nearing retirement still carrying, carrying rings, steel arches, 12, 14 foot rings, you know, at their age, this is what we’re fighting for, to get them to the surface and get youngsters in their places.
16:23
[IDRIS SMITH ON CAMERA] The new production manager has made three visits, I think, to the pit since he's taken over the job and each visit he’s been ‘ere, he's been perfectly satisfied with the two production faces we got, can't find any fault at all with them, in his own words, the one face is an excellent face and the other face is a very good face. They’re the best faces we’ve ‘ad in this pit for 10 years.
16:58
[MALE VOICE] We've ‘ad a few rumours, that's all, about the pit being shut down. We got a review meeting, er, tomorrow, I think, down in Llanishen, in Cardiff. So we’ll know by tomorrow afternoon, I think.
17:13
[PRODUCTION CREW MEMBER, PAUL] I think we’re going to have a drop of rain, now, Malcolm.
17:14
[PRODUCTION CREW MEMBER, MALCOLM] I think we’re going to have a bit of a pour down, Paul.
17:17
[PRODUCTION CREW MEMBER, PAUL] Get this couple coming up by ‘ere, Mal, with the pram. Alright, butt, get on to ‘em.
17:23
[MALE VOICE] I honestly believe that that pit could be made to pay. But I think that they want to do to the coal industry like they done to British Telecom. The idea of this government is to is to close the smaller units and hive-off the profitable parts and sell privately, that’s their ultimate aim, if the truth is known.
17:46
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] There's vast amounts of coal to be mined in South Wales, which have been left in the ground by the old private owners, because it was too expensive and, er, too hard for them to get at the reserves but today, with today's technology, them reserves are becoming available. And we've got to make sure that, er, those reserves that we're talking about are mined by the National Coal Board and not by some fat yank, with a fat cigar and a fat wallet.
18:16
[FEMALE VOICE] They just want to abolish the Unions, completely. And well, when you talk about privatisation, I mean, that’s what that will mean, won’t it, it’ll go back to the days of the old Powell Duffryn pits, when miners have got no rights at all and no one to back them and who wants to go back to that?
18:39
[FEMALE VOICE] Do you want to put us all in a corner? Now, you do as you're told and you‘ll stay in the corner and we'll go back to Victorian days, where we used to do as we were told. I know of old men that have said that they had to put their hands up, you know, like children in school, begging for a day's work in a ‘Ceiber colliery, years and years ago, when, when they were owned by, what were they called, the Cory brothers, it was owned by the Cory brothers, German boys, then. And they used to have to put their hands up, you know, sir, me, sir, three bags bloody full sir, that nonsense, and that's what she wants to bring us back to now. It's always been the same, I go to so many old people and they've all told me the old story, when in the old days, when we this and we that. Well, we don't want to go back to the old days, let's go forward, it’s supposed to be such a scientific world we live in, they’ll spend millions and millions on bloody nuclear arms to blow us to death but they won't put money back into the country, to make work for those that are unemployed.
19:37
[MALE VOICE] Well looking at it logical and sensible, right? Say there's 600 men working there and they're on the dole, so what's it cost for 12 month to pay all them families on the dole, the government, plus she got no resources in, as you gather tax, you pay no tax , no stamps being paid, so at the end of the year, where, it's un-economical, it's costing them more to close that pit than keep it open.
19:58
[MALE VOICE] They always said that Penrikyber and Maerdy were the most militant pits in the coalfield, in the whole of the coalfield, and they've been trying for 17, 18 years to shut Penrikyber, they know the coal is there.
21:03
[IDRIS SMITH ON CAMERA] The coal board yesterday had no real answers to our case, just a bombastic attitude and, er, they had already made the decision before we went down there, yesterday. Cliff Davies' attitude is such, that this pit is to close now, on purely economic grounds, there's no other grounds for closing the pit. We made the point that there's no geological problems, at all in the pit. We’ve got two excellent faces, in the pit, which the Coal Board had already stated. There's no safety problems in the pit, there's adequate reserves in the pit, which the Coal Board now say can be worked from, from deep navigation. So, there's no other argument to closing the pit, as far as the Coal Board is concerned, other than economic arguments, which we, which we have never accepted, which sparked off the strike in the first place.
22:03
[MALE VOICE] Every miner, every miner throughout the country knows that if a pit is exhausted that is the end, there can be no argument about it. If it becomes unsafe to work, it cannot be worked, we accept this fact. But when, when there's coal left in that pit and coal that can be got and mined, at reasonable cost, providing the Coal Board put investment into it. But when they deliberately starve collieries there is no way you can make it economical and it's a deliberate attempt by the Coal Board to close these mines.
22:41
[MALE VOICE] First of all you explored the myth that closing collieries make the rest of the coalfield more economic 'cause the facts are against it. We have closed 800 pits in the United Kingdom, with an object of making the other 200 economic and they are not economic, and in South Wales we've come from 200 pits to 27 pits and yet the Coal Board cannot run those 27 pits economically, so, there's some other factor which causes the Coal Board to lose money, other than un-economic pits.
23:23
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH ON CAMERA] For some reason, the accounting system of the National Coal Board is such, that you cannot look at any detailed accounts of any colliery, of any individual colliery, 'cause there are no detailed accounts, detailed accounting system, at individual collieries. They'll just come out with a figure at the end of the financial year, this colliery lost one and a half million pounds, this colliery lost two and a half million pounds. But when you, when you challenge the Coal Board on these figures and ask for, to see detailed accounts of a particular colliery, they can't produce those accounts.
24:09
[MALE VOICE] I really can't understand why we haven't hammered the Coal Board with facts and figures to illustrate that it isn't the closure of collieries that's going to bring about viability, it's a public enquiry into the accountancy methods of the National Coal Board.
24:48
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] Money poured down the drain, hundreds of thousands of pounds every week, in South Wales. We had a tunnelling machine in Penrikyber, called a Dosco, it, er, drives underground roadways. We used it for about two years, opening up new coal faces. Then, we got into a position with this tunnelling machine where it, we hit a fault, a geological fault. We asked the manager at the time to strip the machine down and move it to another part of the colliery. The decision was that the machine was to be left there and it was left marooned in a heading underground for four years, doing nothing, at a rental charge of £500 a week.
25:40
[IDRIS SMITH ON CAMERA] A few of us went all over the country, speaking to public meetings, to other trade union organisations, to anybody that would listen to us, and we said, all through the strike, that if we was to lose the strike, this pit would go, and that's what's coming to pass now. The Coal Board have been determined to close this pit, we fought it off, year after year, decade after decade and now, well, I don't know what to think of this, they've, er, we'll fight it all the way, that's all I can say, anyway.
26:25
[FEMALE VOICE] It’s obvious we're concerned about our own but there must be other areas, say in Yorkshire or Scotland, different areas, that are fighting just the same as we are doing 'ere, now. You know, where is all the money going, it's all being wasted somewhere, there's billions, this country’s not short of money, when we had the bloody Falklands we were, we were the richest country in the world, she flittered the money like that, it makes me boil.
26:52
[CHILD APPROACHING FILM CREW] Wha' you doin'?
26:53
[FILM CREW MEMBER] What's he speaking, Russian?
26:58
[CHILD, AGAIN] Wha' you filmin'?
27:00
[ANOTHER CHILD] Wha' you filmin'?
27:01
[FILM CREW MEMBER] It's a photo of a dead horse.
27:10
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] If this pit closes and if the phurnacite plant closes, the unemployment figure will go up to over 50%, what do you think will happen to the valley then?
27:18
[MALE VOICE] Be nothing here, they could flood it, make a reservoir, they're all about water, block the river and let 'em 'ave it.
27:30
[MALE VOICE] It's a lot, hell of a lot cheaper for the government and for the taxpayers of this country to keep Penrikyber open, as opposed to closing it.
27:38
[FEMALE VOICE] If 'Kyber pit went, that's it, that's our community dead, I mean, once that pit goes we've got nothing.
27:49
[MALE VOICE] It's, it's the pulse of the village, then, it's the heart of the village, everything evolves around the colliery, then, that's why there's a village 'ere, because the colliery was put 'ere, if the colliery wasn't 'ere there wouldn't be a village 'ere, anyway.
28:00
[FEMALE VOICE] We had the news about Penrikyber shuttin'. Well, I thought, oh well, let it go, what's the worth of fighting for it when we know it's going to shut in any case. And talking to Raymond, then, he said, well, we still gotta fight, we gotta put up a fight for it, we gotta try and keep it open. I mean, this pit, as they stated on television, it's still got 25 years work there, so why should we let it go? We just got to carry on fighting, right to the bitter end and see if we can't keep jobs in this community, 'cause once that pit goes we've all had it. I mean, I got a young son, I've one on the dole, I got one in the pit down by 'ere, I gotta fight for them, if I don't fight for my husband, I gotta fight for them. I mean, my husband have been there 33 years, I mean, to me, that's a lifetime. Alright, if he wants to come out of it, let him come out of it but he's still going to fight for his sons. You know, to have one on the dole and one threatened, now, with no job at all, and he got two children, I mean he's not on his his own, there's thousands of 'em like him around 'ere. What are they going to do, what do they want him to do? They want him to get up and go away somewhere else? I mean, that is killing the community, to let them go away. So therefore, we gotta try and fight to keep this community going. And you know, until, well, the last breath in our body, then, we'll carry on fighting.
29:31
[MALE VOICE] Of course, the final decision will be made by the general meeting that'll take place in the Penrhiwceiber hall on the 10th of August, a week after we've started back to work, then, where we hope for a full membership of the colliery to attend the meeting and the final decision will be taken at that time.
29:53
[MALE VOICE] You had, er, Welsh communities springing up in Oxford, in Slough, in Swindon, all people that had had to leave the valleys because there was no work for 'em. It's getting to a situation, now, we've been industrial Gypsies for far too long. It's about time the money was put there, the colliery is viable and it should be left there, for the community to reap the benefits of it.
30:17
[MALE VOICE] I think we all gotta fight to stand up and be counted you know, in this meeting now which is coming up. So, if anything, if anybody got anything to say then they gotta say it, if they want the pit to shut, it's up to them, if they want to keep it open. Personally, myself, I want to fight and keep the pit open because I'm only a youngster and if I go to another pit where I'm not guaranteed a job, and the jobs that we're going to have, our money is guaranteed for three years and then they can drop our money.
30:43
[MALE VOICE] It's easy for me to say, leave the pit go today 'cos I'm 52 years of age, I can go out of it. But I've got a son working here, I’ve got another son on the government scheme, so I want to keep the pit open and of course I'll fight it all the way.
31:14
[IDRIS SMITH ON CAMERA] Well, it was a fairly volatile meeting, a lot of, um, a lot of things were said in the meeting that needed to be said. Everyone that wanted to express their views have expressed their views and the result of the meeting is that there's an overwhelming majority to fight for Penrikyber pit, and I'm absolutely delighted.
31:36
[MALE VOICE] I could see quite clearly inside, that the membership have been divided to a certain extent, with the financial inducements that the Coal Board and the government are putting forward. But at the end of the day, the argument was quite clearly about jobs, quite clearly about saving the colliery for this community and not to export jobs to other valleys.
31:57
[MALE VOICE] The vote went, let's fight for the pit, we fought for a 12-month for it and we're going to carry on fighting, now, right through the review procedure. But I, I think we should anyway, it was a good result from everybody, that we fight for the colliery.
32:12
[FEMALE VOICE] Unless you’ve lived in a mining community, I don't think anybody can really understand.
32:18
[MALE VOICE] They've come, they've raped, as private owners did before them. The National Coal Board have made millions of pound of profit out of this valley, and they want it disappear, like the Arabs folding their tents and disappearing into the night.
32:32
[MALE VOICE] If they be claiming that 'Kyber's one of the pits that they're gonna take, they'll do all in their power to create divisions within the colliery, but they say it'll close itself.
32:48
[MALE VOICE] But you can see how devious the Coal Board were, then, first week of May, we were already there to start producing, on double shift basis, of course, the Coal Board came in over our heads then, and said that, um, they wanted 57 men over the age of 57 made redundant. Among those 57 were some key men, then, there's blacksmiths, riggers, roadsmiths, welders, people of that calibre, then, who you have to train people to replace them and of course, um, they were irreplaceable. The management then actively campaigned, in the pit, then, along with Nacods to shut the pit then. No authority in the pit, the only discipline installed in the pit was installed by the Union. If it wasn't for the Union, there wouldn’t have been a bucket of coal up the pit… because they didn’t want it.
33:44
[VOICE OF NEWSREADER] Miners at Penrikyber Colliery in the Cynon Valley have voted 2 to 1 to close the pit with the loss of over 500 jobs, Martin Shankleman reports.
33:50
[VOICE OF MARTIN SHANKLEMAN, BBC REPORTER] The Penrhiwceiber men took just one hour to decide to shut the pit, defying their Lodge Committee who urged them to put it through the review procedure. The result of the vote in the Workmen's Hall was greeted by silence. The men filed out and most refused to speak. Those who did were highly critical of the 2 to 1 vote.
34:07
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] Shattered, absolutely shattered, kid. The decision of August the 10th when we had a 2 to 1 majority to fight for the pit has now been reversed in there tonight, and, er, I know men are gonna regret it, I know they're gonna regret it. I know there’s men that ‘ave voted in there to close the pit, within 2 or 3 years we’ll be going up to the DHSS office and the dole office, begging for money for their, for their kids’ shoes for school and everything else.
34:37
[MALE VOICE] It’s a tragic day for this community, for the members of Penrikyber Colliery to be bought off by the government, ‘cause that’s, that’s, that is in effect what happened in there today, like.
34:47
[IDRIS SMITH ON CAMERA] So far as the dole payments goes, of course, people that, er, have been on strike a year have paid no contributions and, um, they wouldn't be able to receive dole next year, but if we had gone through the review procedure we could have taken anything up to nine months to go through it, so they wouldn't have lost that much, they wouldn't have lost 500 jobs down there and that's what we've done, now, whichever way you look at it, 500 jobs have been taken out of this community.
35:35
[MALE VOICE] But I think if Thatcher had come into Penrhiwceiber and come and say, stopped with me for example, and meet the people of Penrhiwceiber, I think, I think there's a failure by us to get communicated to the people in authority, the essence of what it is we've been fighting about, or what the boys been fighting about for the last 12-month, and what we've been struggling the last 20 years to, to, you know, bring into being, that’s the community and the jobs. It's not a sort of, er, Luddite or ignorant approach, but an understanding that the communities were created by the pit, and until such time as there is provision for those communities to ‘ave some alternatives to dereliction, that will always be trouble.
36:32
[FEMALE VOICE] I wanted to go down that pit, I wanted to sit in that cage and stop 'em fetching any bloody salvager. Why should they ‘ave to salvage, why should they ‘ave to degrade their selves and salvage that pit. I mean, I do they think those man are feeling, shuttin’ their own bloody pit? They’re, they’re heartbroken, they are, I know my husband’s heartbroken about it. I mean, when he ‘eared the decision on Monday night, when they had the vote, he came home and he was, he was literally in tears. I thought, bloody hell, what the hell are they doing to him, what are they doing to him?
37:15
[MALE VOICE] I've given it long and hard thought about the closure of 'Kyber pit and what made mind up was, I could see we were, after the strike, we were getting nowhere, I could see the shape of the colliery, nothing was coming in, no firm decisions were bein’ made about the future, like development or anything like that, or repairs, major repairs. And I could, I could see the writing on the wall, er, your Union, then, in all fairness to my, to my Lodge, they run ‘ere, there and everywhere and they just could not get no satisfactory answers to give to the membership. Men, myself, we were disillusioned, we were, we were getting nowhere and we could see the run down. The final death blow came when, er, the Coal Board announced that unless we made a decision before, 12 weeks before the 31st of December, that we’d lose unemployment benefit for the current year. Well, that, then, was the final death blow, as I said, and we had a meeting and we took the vote on it.
38:38
[MALE VOICE] Bit of a fallacy going about, that it was the older boys, what closed the pit eventually was the swaying of the younger men.
38:45
[MALE VOICE] As far as the management of the colliery is concerned, they were actively campaigning, within the colliery, to close the colliery, prior to the, to the review meeting and they were taking very much an active role, in as much as the under-managers were going down the pit and spreading rumours amongst the men, then, and it had a serious effect on their, on their thinking, then.
39:08
[MALE VOICE] It's not only this generation though, you can go back to, more than likely, when the pit was sunk in 1879, I think, the first ton of coal came up the pit, then, from then on, then, every generation ‘ave ‘ad to fight for the pit. Where the colliery manager, in this particular pit at that time, er, held a meeting day, then, Vesting Day, Janurary the 1st, 1947 and er, kept the men on top of the pit, something which was unique as far as they were concerned, 'cause they had to be down the pit by seven o’clock and you had the colliery manager saying to them, er, ‘course lads, this is 1947, this is Vesting Day nationalisation, er, the pits are yours lads but don't forget we're still the bosses.
40:01
[CONTINUED] I've got no regrets for going on strike, I think, you know, if we hadn’t gone on strike, we’d have gone the same way, then, and we’d have gone on our knees, then, we’d have gone out on our knees, then, and at least we can say now, then, er, I can say to my children or my grandchildren, at least we fought for it, we didn’t give to ‘em on a plate.
40:33
[FEMALE VOICE] Where's the sense in shutting down 25 years’ work, where's the sense of it?
40:40
[MALE VOICE] If you don't invest in a pit, obviously things have got to go eventually, you can't keep machines running on string or wire for an indefinite period.
40:50
[MALE VOICE] No one knows better than people working in a particular colliery whether that colliery justifies its existence.
41:51
[MALE VOICE] It’s obvious that Penrikyber has been a thorn in their flesh for many years and they are quite pleased to see the end of it.
41:59
[VOICE OF IDRIS SMITH] Miners will go from this pit, into other pits, and we won't give up the ghost in other pits, we’ll fight just as hard for the other pits as we have fought MacGregor, we fought this government, and we'll continue to fight in other collieries.
42:14
[VOICE OF PRODUCTION CREW] Right, thank you, Dai.