PROGRESS REPORT: PITHEAD BATHS

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 11th Year

Issue

Issue No.

9

Date Released

May 1958

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1PROGRESS REPORT: PITHEAD BATHS
2. 2RINK ‘N ROLL
3. 3BYPRODUCTIVITY
4. 4THE OLD PHEASANT

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 4

Section Title

PROGRESS REPORT

Summary

BFI synopsis: a report on the progress of washing facilities, from the tub by the kitchen fire to modern baths
NCB Commentary - To a miner the end of the shift doesn’t mean that he’s finished with coal for the day.
Not so very long ago, home meant a long walk and, when he got there, the miner faced a session in the tub in front of the kitchen fire to rid himself of pit dirt. Fifty years ago this was standard practice.
Around the thirties the picture started to change.
The Miners’ Welfare Commission, as it then was, took on the job of building baths for miners at the collieries.
For the first time men were able to clean up at the end of a shift before they went home - they left their pit dirt where they earned it.
These scenes are typical of the baths built around that time.
Men’s clothes were wound up to the ceiling out of harm’s way, but the security of individual lockers was then by no means universal.
When the Coal Board took over in 1946, there were 366 baths at British collieries serving just over half of the miners on the books.
Big changes have been made since then.
The post-war years made new permanent building difficult so at many pits prefabricated baths were put up, mainly at collieries which only had a short working life to run.
Then, as time went on, a big permanent building programme got under way.
Behind this programme was a policy of providing pithead baths wherever the size and life of the colliery justified them.
In Mining Review we’ve seen some of the special cases.
At Oakdale, in Monmouthshire, they built a lift to take men up the steep valley side from pit bank straight into the baths under cover.
The new layout at Hafodyrynys envisages the paddy mail train pulling out of the new baths building to take men the half mile to the entrance to the new mine drift and then on to their work.
At all modern baths the locker system affords individual security to every man who uses them.
Boot cleaning and greasing facilities are also at hand.
In many cases the pit-head bath also acts as a shop for pit clothing and bath necessities.
From 366 baths in 1946, the total has soared to nearly 700 at the present time.
Today, 95 per cent. of men employed at collieries have bathing facilities on the spot.
More than 17 1/2 million pounds have been sunk into this enterprise and, in terms of health, amenities, and better labour relations, who can say that this money hasn’t been well spent.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 8th April 1958.

Keywords

Health and medicine; Domestic life; Social conditions

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.13 No.147 January 1959, p27.
The National Archives COAL 32   /12 Scripts for Mining Review, 1956-1960

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board