AREA PROFILE: ABERDARE

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 9th Year

Issue

Issue No.

11

Date Released

Jul 1956

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1STORM WARNING
2. 2LINK-UP
3. 3AREA PROFILE: ABERDARE

Story

Story No. within this Issue

3 / 3

Section Title

AREA PROFILE

Summary

BFI synopsis: survey of No.4 Area, South Western Division.
NCB Commentary - Aberdare, Glamorgan, is the setting for the National Eisteddfod of 1956. Here too is the focal point of the most successful coal winning area in South Wales.
Four valleys and the mountains which divide them make up No. 4 - the Aberdare - area, a rugged, hard living terrain underground as well as on the surface.
This is an old part of industrial Wales, full of names known far beyond its boundaries.
Here, at Cyfarthfs, the Iron and Steel Industry in this part of the world began.
At Dowlais in the thirties it seemed to have ended.
To plan for the future in these valleys means fighting the past - not only reorganising pits that in some cases are 100 years old, but restoring pits that in some cases are 100 years old, but restoring confidence to men who 25 years ago had seemingly lost it for ever.
From the valleys which, off the hills at night, look like the sky turned upside down, many men left mining to work in the factories which were set up to exploit the new skills to which pitmen could turn their hands. But today men are beginning to come back on the coal.
Before nationalisation there were few machines in No. 4 Area. Today plows and disc shearers are coming to be the staple tools of an area where the tradition was hitherto one of hand-got coal.
Other new machines are being put through their paces, sometimes under very difficult conditions.
At Trelewis colliers are battling with a Continuous Miner to win coal from seams so waterlogged that an 8 hour shift down here is an endurance test for man and machine.
At collieries which on the surface don’t appear greatly changed, like Deep Duffryn, the layout underground is being torn out and refashioned out of all recognition.
By mechanisation and reorganisation output per man shift has risen in the 8 years of Nationalisation by one quarter - from 17 1/2 cwt. in 1947 to 21 1/2 cwt. last year. And it’s still going up.
Remember all this is 1500 feet below the surface - not Piccadilly Circus underground.
Showpiece of the attack which has been made on new coal in No. 4 Area is Mardy, at the head of the little Rhondda Valley. This brand new plant will draw coal from under the mountains, and is linked straight through by a level Loco Haulage road with the neighbouring Dare Valley and the newly reconstructed Bwllfa pit.
Soon the Dare and the Little Rhondda will amalgamate their resources to wind 4,000 tons a day out of the new Mardy shafts.
As in other Areas where mechanisation has grown in pace, training has grown in importance. At the Aberdare and Merthyr Technical Colleges apprentices do their first year as full time students before being attached to a skilled man to polish their practical training in the pit.
The Scheme to train apprentice colliery electricians and mechanics, both skilled branches, has started in a small way, but will pay off in the years to come.
As qualified men in the future these apprentices will, in their turn, have under them the apprentices of 5 or 6 years from now.
Associated enterprises tie in with coal production. The big Phurnacite Plant at Aberaman is expanding even more to cope with the demand for smokeless fuels.
Next door the Area’s own Power Station, supplying pits and the local community alike, has been modernised and re-equipped.
Out of the difficult conditions of a region disturbed by nature on the surface as well as in the coal underground a new No. 4 Area is being carved.

Keywords

Mining; Fuels; Energy resources

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.11 No.123 January 1957, p30.
The National Archives COAL 32   /12 Scripts for Mining Review, 1956-1960

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board