Yorkshire - NORTH STAR

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 20th Year

Issue

Issue No.

9

Date Released

May 1967

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1MARILYN
2. 2Northumberland - Out of Darkness
3. 3Yorkshire - NORTH STAR

Story

Story No. within this Issue

3 / 3

Summary

BFI synopsis: A survey of Britain’s biggest coal field - Yorkshire.
NCB Commentary - Come on into the brand new Doncaster Headquarters of Yorkshire’s coalfield.
Four areas with one thing in common, a thriving future - yet they’re all different.
South Yorkshire grows out of Sherwood Forest and the Dukeries. It’s still a country of isolated collieries, like Steetley and Maltby with miles of country in between.
Rich country - rich for centuries - a country of famous names and places, like Wentworth Woodhouse.
Then suddenly, the area bangs up hard against the steelworks of Rotherham - and Sheffield, reborn today as one of Britain’s newest cities.
Onwards now towards Leeds, past Barley Hall and Silstone mines to reach the older part of the coalfield - the Barnsley area.
Barnsley and Sheffield are poles apart, through only miles separate them. Barnsley means markets, arcades and shops.
People come to these stalls from miles around.
And Barnsley means the clubs.
Come to this part of Yorkshire if you want to see how Yorkshire people enjoy themselves.
Move on again, with a train of empties heading to Doncaster.
Very soon now, you are in the country of the big collieries.
Barnbrough - 850,000 tons a year.
Goldthorpe - 650,000 tons a year.
Bullcroft - 530,000 tons of coal a year.
Askern - 700,000 tons of coal a year.
Brodsworth - over 1 1/4 million tons of coal a year, and Hickleton Main. This is the part of Yorkshire where you feel that it’s just because it’s Yorkshire it’s got to be biggest and best.
And first too. Like Dorothy Hyman, herself from Hickleton. First in the field so often and for so long, today she is handling on the secret to others.
There’s yet another Yorkshire up the road a few miles north.
This is the country running down from Leeds and Wakefield and the other great textile towns.
It’s the country of Rugby League and of race-courses galore.
At Pontefract a steeple-chase is more like a headstock race - from Prince of Wales round past the colliery tip the winning post at Glasshoughton.
This northern area faces both ways. West to the Textile Towns - east to Europe.
A full 70 miles from the sea, the Aire and Calder navigation brings sea-going barges right up to Leeds and Wakefield.
All the way down to the Humber you ride past a rollcall of collieries - Rothwell, Water Haigh, Savile, Allerton Bywater, Wheldale, Fryston.
This roll-call spells power. Power for some of Britain’s newest Power Stations.
Not far now to one of Europe’s greatest coal exporting ports - Immingham.
From here Yorkshire and Midland coal goes to Scandinavia and the Low Countries.
Four Yorkshire areas - all different but all in a community of Coal.
The brand new mine at Kellingley stands as a symbol of all of Yorkshire - Britain’s biggest coalfield, at the service of the nation.

Keywords

Mining

Locations

Yorkshire; England

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