FORGING THE LINK

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 10th Year

Issue

Issue No.

4

Date Released

Dec 1956

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1COAL MINING TODAY
2. 2BLYTH SPIRIT
3. 3AUTUMN OUTING
4. 4FORGING THE LINK

Story

Story No. within this Issue

4 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: Manufacture and testing of colliery chains.
NCB Commentary - At any time of the day or night in Britain’s pits men and materials are riding the cages speedily and safely. To these men the big wheel is a symbol of security and reliance.
Hard-by the Rhondda collieries in South Wales stands the works of Brown Lennox. Here they have been making chains since the time of Nelson; anchors for the Admiralty and foreign Navies, chains to hold anything from marker buoys to big battleships - chains for all purposes.
Chain-making is a hand craft. Two strikers and a firer forge the metal from the furnace. Here strikers Les Davies and Cecil Price, whose brother-in-law works at nearby Penrhyceiber, are fashioning a link held by Hubert Thomas. The secret of their craft is in rhythm and split second timing.
Here is a colliery chain in the making which will support a cage below the winding rope. Every link must be proudly made. Walter Clift, Johnny Barnett and Howard Lewis aal have personal affinities with the collieries which make them jealous of the craft they serve.
After a colliery chain is forged, each separate link must be welded. Charles Smith wields his welding tool to reinforce every link so that the join will be the strongest part in the chain.
All colliery chaines are subjected to rigorous testing. At Brown Lennox they test also chains sent in from other makers.
If a faulty link got as far as the test bench, this is what would happen. Better here in the factory than down the pit.
Before they leave the works, colliery chains are made up with pendants, rings and cappells, ready for fitting to the cage.
The symbol of Brown Lennox is the 4 hands; hands which stretch out to connect the chainmaker to the men of the collieries.
On top of the cage the fitter makes his routine check.
The work of the men of Pontyprydd is on trial daily. Miners going on afternoon shift will depend on the chainmakers’ craftmanship for their safety. In turn, the coal that they win will become coke to fire the furnaces in which the links supporting their cages are forged. Here is an example of man’s dependency on man.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 5th November 1956.

Keywords

Industry and manufacture; Mining

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.11 No.128 June 1957, p258.
The National Archives COAL 32   /12 Scripts for Mining Review, 1956-1960

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board