SAFETY AT WORK

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 18th Year

Issue

Issue No.

3

Date Released

Nov 1964

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1ON THE SCREEN
2. 2TUESDAYs AT 7-30
3. 3SAFETY AT WORK
4. 4J.P.

Story

Story No. within this Issue

3 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: protective clothing, its uses above and below ground.
NCB Commentary - By its very nature coal mining is an exacting and always potentially dangerous craft.
Accidents are caused - they don’t just happen.
In the mining industry big strides are being made to bring home this truth to all workers.
Safety is everyone’s business. Protective equipment is commonplace in sport. And in industry, where lives are being saved everyday.
Let’s take a look at protective clothing in the mining industry.
There are gloves to protect the hands and to help in giving a grip.
There are knee-pads - for progress over rough ground - to lessen the risk of injury.
There are boots with steel toe-caps - to avoid this.
The Coal Board’s safety experts, working with suppliers in private industry, produce some of the best protective clothing brains and money can make. It isn’t for wearing on a picnic - it’s for safety at work.
Take a handful of pins. The hand inside this glove will be withdrawn unblemished.
Take a 7-ton bus - a willing guinea pig wearing miners’ boots - and there’s nothing to worry about.
And there are more scientific, if less dramatic, methods of testing protective clothing. If necessary the testing can continue night and day, until stresses and strains reveal themselves - which can be put right before a piece of equipment is released for general use.
Protective clothing for the miner going on shift enhances safety at work both underground and on the surface.
No-one would try this without a safety belt - nor be able to walk away without a scratch.
No-one should set out to work without taking advantage of the equipment which has been designed to protect.

Keywords

Mining; Safety devices; Fashion and costume

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
The National Archives COAL 32   /13 Scripts for Mining Review, 1960-1963

Credits:

Sponsor

National Coal Board

Production Co.

National Coal Board Film Unit