Scotland - NOVA SCOTIA

Series

Series Name
Mining Review 20th Year

Issue

Issue No.
10
Date Released
Jun 1967
Stories in this Issue:
  1. 1Scotland - NOVA SCOTIA
  2. 2Surrey - CONVERSION
  3. 3The North East - OUT OF THE PAST
  4. 4Track Rod

Story

Story No. within this Issue
1 / 4
Summary
BFI synopsis: The coal industry in Scotland, and its increasing productivity.
NCB Commentary - Scotland’s past - and its plans for the future, have not always been happy. Working conditions in mining were often very difficult - if there was work at all.
But today, in the mid sixties, the picture is very different. The mines in Scotland are newly reorganised. Instead of 8 areas, today there are only two - North and South.
North across the Forth, is the area of the power stations - of Kincardine - and now of Longannet, still building, but which by 1968 will need 6 or 7 million tons of coal a year to keep its generators turning - coal in quantities calculated by computer as it is needed.
The coal will come from Manor Powis, from Seafield and from a line of pits stretching from the Ochil Hills to the Forth.
The surface of these collieries are neat and tidy. They will wind only men and materials. The coal for the power station will go underground.
South Scotland is the Area of - Bilston Glen and Monkton Hall - and of Killoch, the first million-ton a year colliery in Scotland.
There is a bright future for Scottish coal as a source of power, for, if Scotland is to keep its place in the modern world, it will need all the power it can get.
Hydro-electricity can only make a small contribution - for a long time nuclear power will not make much more - the bulk of the load must be borne by coal.
Once a country dependent entirely on iron and steel, on shipbuilding and heavy engineering - in the last twenty years Scotland has been diversifying - adding new industries - from motor-cars - through watches and clocks - to electronics.
And stil the change is not fast enough. There’s still room for plenty of improvement in the state of the nation.
But out of the old Scotland a new Scotland is growing. The new towns are being built. There will be new centres of prosperity.
And the power behind them all must still be coal, and the thousands of Scots who mine it, men who have boosted their productivity by 70% in the last 8 years.
Keywords
Mining
Locations
Scotland
Written sources
British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Viewing Copy - bfi screenonline
The National Archives COAL 32   /13 Scripts for Mining Review, 1960-1963
BFI Screenonline synopsis   ID No.721729
Credits:
Sponsor
National Coal Board
Production Co.
National Coal Board Film Unit

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