The Spirit of '45 Page #6

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and it was a really, really bad period.

On the onset of war, obviously,

the government couldn't allow

these coal owners to run the mines

in the fashion they'd run them before,

not only opening and shutting,

but a lack of investment,

which showed tremendously up

the inadequacies of the industry.

The coal industry

was vital during the war.

That's why the government,

the National government,

had to take over

the control of the coalmines.

The priority was coal.

The priority was always coal.

You got paid for the number of drams,

coal tubs, that you filled per day.

You didn't get paid for putting props up

to keep the roof up.

And I was working with my miner

and he was a lovely guy.

I was looking at the top and I could see

that we hadn't got any posts up.

We should have put the posts up,

but then the horse come up

with an empty tub.

They said if you can fill this quick,

we'll give you another one.

So, bugger the post, bugger the props,

smash into the coal.

And then all of a sudden,

down came the roof. Down came the roof.

Now, I was on the far end of it

and I got covered.

But when I looked up, I could see Fred.

I could see Fred.

He was under this huge rock

and his feet were kicking.

And I screamed and I run down.

I got the big, big wedge,

which we put in front of the drams

in case it runs away.

I ran up and I was screaming,

"Fred, Fred, Fred!"

I tried to knock this.

I was screaming all the time it happened

and the other miners

were all coming down.

Eventually we picked it up,

but Fred was dead.

And why did he die?

He died because the priority was coal.

And the least priority of all

was safely.

There's only one word

to describe the coal owners.

They were tyrants. They were tyrants

who not only owned the mines,

they thought they owned

the people who worked in the mines.

And to a degree, they did.

A man's sons had been stealing apples

off a tree in the coal owner's grounds.

The man was dismissed

and thrown out of his house.

That was the type of people that were

running the mining industry in Durham.

Some were related to the royal family,

of all people.

The Bowes-Lyons

were big coal owners in Durham.

Lord Lambton

was a big coal owner in Durham.

Lord Londonderry

was a big coal owner in Durham.

These people were there

for only one thing: Profit.

They made sure they got profit

and anyone who stood in their way

was treated very, very harshly.

When you look at Denaby

and Cadeby, what happened there.

They evicted all the miners

for withdrawing their labour.

The miners and their families.

Threw 'em out of their homes

just because they withdrew their labour

to increase the wages.

Them sort of people are despicable.

That is the right word, isn't it?

(NEWSREEL)

One of the ceremonies

marking the transfer of the ownership

of British coalmines

took place on the roof

of Lansdowne House in London

where Lord Hyndley, the chairman,

hoisted the National Coal Board flag.

And so the mines

passed into national ownership

on the first day of the New Year.

Though nationalisation is,

of course, a long-term policy,

January 1st, 1947, was undoubtedly

the day the miners had been waiting for.

We had these fantastic speeches

and the cheers were going up.

"At last we're going

to have safety in the mine."

'We're going to have water infusion

in the colliery."

"Safety is going to be

the key priority. We have won."

And I thought, "What a wonderful day."

And everybody was cheering,

laughing, crying, dancing.

Even the wives were up there as well.

At High Blantyre,

Lanarkshire, is Andrew McNulty,

veteran fighter for miners' rights

and contemporary of Bob Smillie

and William Small.

Above Dickson Pit

where his father and grandfather,

victims of two great disasters,

lie buried,

McNulty unfurls the flag

of the National Coal Board.

The ceremonies mark the taking over

of the mines by the nation.

When I was the youngest member

in 1947, they unveiled a plaque.

They just sent for us down there.

Never got nowt, like.

You had to still do the same shift.

My father had to come up with us.

My father thought

I'd done something wrong.

He said, "What have you been doing now?"

I says, "I haven't done owt wrong."

They took us up and unveiled the plaque.

They had the youngest member,

I was the youngest member,

and the oldest member,

somebody called Ford.

The atmosphere

wasn't quite the same this year.

For the first time,

the management was invited.

This was the first Durham rally since

the pits were handed to the people.

Coal Board representatives

took part in the celebrations.

The mines were now owned by the people

and run for and on behalf of the people.

The elderly miners, obviously,

it was their utopia.

They'd been promised this since 1919.

The whole country is watching

to see how this great new organisation,

this new adventure,

this new experiment, comes out.

The great experiment of socialism

in a democracy

depends on you.

The way nationalisation was done

was on a centralized system, top down.

The chairman of the National Coal Board

ran all the pits

in the way the private owner used to.

I'm not saying it wasn't

a better system, because it was.

But at the same time the idea

that people vino worked in industry

had any say in how the industry was run

was a completely foreign idea.

I got myself well annoyed

I'll tell you for why.

A leopard cannot change its spots.

We had officials at this colliery

that still had that in their mind,

you know, that they

would not pull their weight

the same as they would

under private enterprise.

In fact, at a meeting

of the consultative committee,

I accused them of indirect sabotage

of production

since the mines were nationalised.

And I say the best thing we could have

done when the mines was nationalised,

put them into a boat with a false bottom

and put them into North Sea

and let them swim back.

That's what they should have done.

Now, the first humiliation I ever got

was our own agent and manager.

I'm going to quote his name

on this incident.

He was called Major Brookes.

He was publicly denounced as a tyrant

by our own lodge officials

in the branch,

because of his attitude

towards the men. A tyrant.

And yet that man was made

chairman of the Regional Coal Board.

That was the first humiliation.

You can understand how I felt.

Who's put him there?

This was the Labour government.

Now, the second incident, I'm standing

against Manny Shinwell at Durham.

He was Ministry of Fuel and Power.

He gets up and he says, "I take great

pride in being the man responsible

for appointing Lord Hyndley

as chairman of the National Coal Board

Lord Hyndley spoke against

nationalisation, didn't believe in it.

I says, 'What sort of a nationalisation

have we got?"

"The same old hand back in power."

I think the rest

of the communities, the welfares,

the libraries, the reading rooms,

the miners' homes,

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