NOT SO DUSTY

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 12th Year

Issue

Issue No.

9

Date Released

May 1959

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1NOT SO DUSTY
2. 2TRIO
3. 3SHAFT STUDY

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 3

Summary

BFI synopsis: the manufacture of brickettes from small coal, and their sale in Lancashire.
NCB Commentary - In some areas, retailing has always been part of the business of the coal producers themselves. In the North West, Mobile Order Offices cater for outlying districts and new estates is an all-out effort to increase the service to the consumer.
These mobile offices sipplement the permanent ones - which were once the property of the Mine owners - and are now operated by the Board. In them you can order your household supplies or take home a couple of brickettes and a fire lighter to get the place warm quickly.
These brickettes are manufactured at Mosley Common Colliery just outside Manchester.
Small coal passes direct from the pit to the brickette plant by conveyor.
The other constituent, pitch, comes in larger lumps and must be ground down to about the same size as the coal.
The two materials are mixed thoroughly together - 10% pitch, 90% coal and are then heated up to about 400 degrees F. and compressed. Soon, they appear at the other end of the machine as brickettes - ready for wrapping. 33,000 are produced in an 8 hour shift - more than one a second. Each, you’ll notice, is neatly stamped with the Colliery’s initials.
Older miners do the work - men like John Biddy who has worked in collieries since he was 14.
And Robert Carter who has already spent 20 years at Mosley Common.
With a falling off of industrial demand the problem of what to do with small coal is a pressing one and brickette manufacture is only one of the many ways which are being used to solve it.
Each brickette is wrapped separately in greaseproof paper.
Then round the back where they are fed to another machine which wraps them into neat brown paper parcels of six.
This fuel is becoming more and more popular because of its compactness and the cleanness with which it can be stored and handled. Even food shops can sell it - a quick call at the grocers and you’ve the evening’s fuel in a parcel small enough to do in the shopping basket. When you get home it’s simplicity itself. Just put one in the grate, the hygienic wrapper burns off and very soon you have a nice warm fire to sit by.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 31st March 1959.

Keywords

Business and commerce; Industry and manufacture; Mining; Fuels

Locations

England; Lancashire

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.13 No.157 November 1959, p585.
The National Archives COAL 32   /12 Scripts for Mining Review, 1956-1960

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board