NO RETURNING

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 8th Year

Issue

Issue No.

11

Date Released

Jul 1955

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1MUM’S DAY
2. 2TIME WELL SPENT
3. 3BOXING: NATIONAL FINALS
4. 4NO RETURNING

Story

Story No. within this Issue

4 / 4

Summary

BFI Summary - Closure of Long Lane colliery.
NCB synopsis: Long Lane Colliery in Lancashire is closed after 60 years of production. Men and tools are transferred to a big new enterprise at Bold Colliery nearby.
NCB Commentary - This is the last day in the life of a colliery. Long Lane, better known locally as Crow Colliery, born in 1893, comes now to the end of its productive life. To-day coal is still coming to the suface, but for the last time.
Among the coal are tubs of salvaged equipment destined for a new home. The pit yard is stacked with the discarded chattels of a house that’s closing down.
The old hand methods that were good enough when Long Lane started are dying out all over the industry. The last coal comes clanking through the screening plant before the conveyor line stops for ever, and the machinery is broken up for salvage.
The main colliery haulage has been driven from the surface for 60 years by an engine as solid in its construction as the traditions of the pit. The maker’s name plate is the birth certificate of Long Lane. Now the haulage comes to a stop for ever and the pit waits for the whistle which will mark the end of its life as a colliery.
As the men of Long Lane come off shift for the last time it must be with mixed feelings. For the older men verging on retirement age the end of Long Lane marks the finish of their working days. Manager Hughes, a sprightly 74, has 60 years of mining behind him. To his old comrades of the pit he has a special word of farewell.
Typical of Long Lane are men like 67-year-old Tom Duxbury who have grown up and spent their whole working life at the pit - all fiftyone years of it.
Then there’s Weighman Tom Dean, who’s served the colliery for 46 years and can still count on ten years of useful work.
But Long Lane will live on in the young miners it has trained; many of them now to work at the big reconstructed colliery at nearby Bold. With Long Lane deserted, these men will find at Bold the opportunity to satisfy their ambitions. The old pit will live on in their memories as their thoughts now turn towards Bold and its output of 4,000 tons a day.
The tools which exhausted the seams at Long Lane are on their way to be used by the same hands in a great new enterprise.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 6 June 1955.

Keywords

Mining

Locations

England; Lancashire

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases
The National Archives COAL 32   /3 Scripts for Mining Review, 1949-1956

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board