PAPER FROM COAL

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 11th Year

Issue

Issue No.

11

Date Released

Jul 1958

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1THE DUKE DROPS IN
2. 2JUDO
3. 3PAPER FROM COAL

Story

Story No. within this Issue

3 / 3

Summary

BFI synopsis: coal’s part in the production of paper.
NCB Commentary - Even your daily newspaper depends on - coal.
Coal from the Midlands and the north comes down by sea to serve the key plants of the British paper industry, sited in Kent.
In Britain today, power for paper-making stems from coal.
Basic raw material for the manufacture of paperis, of course, timber.
They call this pulp-wood and it comes from overseas.
Huge stock-piles back up the increasing demand for paper in all its production varieties.
Imported timber can be ground mechanically in order to make pulp. The pulp is the sort of porridge from which paper is made.
Boiling timber with chemicals is another process for producing pulp.
Behind all the processes of the paper-making industry stands the demand for power.
This new power-house at a big Kentish newsprint mill is saving some 50,000 tons of coal a year over old-fashioned equipment.
At this 2 1/2 million pound power generation plant the control room could serve the requirements of a city of a quarter of a million people.
This is a paper-making machine, all one hundred yards of it.
To start with it has to be fed with pulp.
Apart from pulp made at the works, imported dried pulp is used. This compressed product of the forests is mixed with water to the right consistency in a hydropulper.
Now the wet pulp flows on to the front end of the paper-making machine.
On a huge band of fine wire mesh, the pulp is carried forward to lose its moisture by drainage and evaporation.
At the end of the wire, having lost tons of water, the wet paper, as it is now, leaps on to a band of woollen felt and is then fed through the rollers of the paper-making machine.
The newly made paper travels over a series of cylinders steam heated to dry and calendar the paper on its passage.
At the far end of the machine the paper is rolled at a speed of up to 2000 feet a minute.
Time to change from a full roll to a new one. Watch how the web of new paper is blown up by compressed air on to a fresh roller without production stopping.
In the control room speed, temperature, and pressure are under constant check.
Another five mile roll of newsprint travels off the machine.
To complete the link-up between coal and paper, in the bag-making section of this factory sacks are being produced which will carry coal to the domestic consumer.
Paper in the multiplicity of its modern uses is one of the mainstays of 20th century civilisation.
Once again behind it all stands coal, the basic power source of Britain’s industry.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 6th June 1958.

Keywords

Industry and manufacture; Mining; Fuels

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