The Blantyre mining disaster, which happened on the morning of 22 October 1877, in Blantyre, Scotland, was Scotland's worst ever mining accident. Pits No. 2 and No. 3 of William Dixon's Blantyre Colliery were the site of an explosion which killed 207 miners, possibly more, with the youngest being a boy of 11. It was known that firedamp was present in the pit and it is likely that this was ignited by a naked flame. The accident left 92 widows and 250 fatherless children.
Brassed Off is a 1996 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Mark Herman and starring Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor.
Murton is a village in County Durham, England. Lying eight miles (13 km) east of the city of Durham and six miles (9.7 km) south of Sunderland, it has a population of 4,534, increasing to 7,676 at the 2011 Census.
A pit village, colliery village or mining village is a settlement built by colliery owners to house their workers. The villages were built on the coalfields of Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution where new coal mines were developed in isolated or unpopulated areas. Such settlements were developed by companies for the incoming workers.
The National Coal Mining Museum for England is based at the site of Caphouse Colliery in Overton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It opened in 1988 as the Yorkshire Mining Museum and was granted national status in 1995.
Cwmdare is a village very close to Aberdare, in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. The village's history is intertwined with coal-mining, and since the decline of the industry in the 1980s, it has become primarily a commuter base for the larger surrounding towns of Aberdare and Merthyr Tydfil and Pontypridd, as well as the cities of Cardiff and Swansea.
The Senghenydd colliery disaster, also known as the Senghenydd explosion, occurred at the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd, near Caerphilly, Glamorgan, Wales, on 14 October 1913. The explosion, which killed 439 miners and a rescuer, is the worst mining accident in the United Kingdom. Universal Colliery, on the South Wales Coalfield, extracted steam coal, which was much in demand. Some of the region's coal seams contained high quantities of firedamp, a highly explosive gas consisting of methane and hydrogen.
The Stars Look Down is a 1935 novel by A. J. Cronin which chronicles various injustices in an English coal mining community. A film version was released in 1940, and television adaptations include both Italian (1971) and British (1975) versions.
Philip Gordon Weekes was a Welsh mining engineer. As the National Coal Board's manager of the South Wales coalfields, Weekes played an important role mediating between the two sides of the miners' strike of 1984-85 in England, Scotland and Wales.
The Stars Look Down is a 1975 British television adaptation written by Alan Plater from A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel The Stars Look Down. The Granada production was directed by Roland Joffé, Alan Grint and Howard Baker and starred Ian Hastings as David Fenwick and Susan Tracy as his wife, Jenny. Other versions include a 1940 British film and a 1971 Italian television adaptation.
E le stelle stanno a guardare is a 1971 Italian adaptation of A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel The Stars Look Down. It was written and directed by Anton Giulio Majano and was produced by Radiotelevisione Italiana. The miniseries was a massive success, averaging about 20 million viewers per episode.
Frickley & South Elmsall Colliery was opened by the Carlton Main Colliery Company Ltd in 1903 in South Elmsall, in Yorkshire, England.
Lady Windsor Colliery was a coal mine located in the village of Ynysybwl in South Wales. Opened in 1884, it closed in 1988, 104 years later.
The Knockshinnoch disaster was a mining accident that occurred in September 1950 in the village of New Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland. A glaciated lake filled with liquid peat and moss flooded pit workings, trapping more than a hundred miners underground. For several days rescue teams worked non-stop to reach the trapped men. Most were eventually rescued three days later, but 13 died. The disaster was an international media event.
The Lancashire Coalfield in North West England was an important British coalfield. Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago.
Maerdy Colliery was a coal mine located in the South Wales village of Maerdy, in the Rhondda Valley, located in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, and within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan, Wales. Opened in 1875, it closed in December 1990.
Rote Erde is a German television film series in 13 parts, the 1983 and 1989, all directed by Klaus Emmerich. The camera was led by Joseph Vilsmaier and Theo Bierkens. The title music was composed by Irmin Schmidt. The German premiere was on (ARD) channel at 23 October 1983. The last episode was screened on 4 March 1990.
Haig Colliery was a coal mine in Whitehaven, Cumbria, in north-west England. The mine was in operation for almost 70 years and produced anthracitic coal which is most useful for coking coal. Situated on the coast, the underground workings of the mine spread westwards out under the Irish Sea and mining was undertaken at over 4 miles (6.4 km) out underneath the sea bed.
The Happy Lands is a 2012 British film written by Peter Cox and Robert Rae about a coal-mining community in Fife, Scotland, during the general strike of 1926. The film was released on 17 February 2012. Much of the film's dialogue is in the Scots language. Many of the cast members were amateurs who had no previous acting experience, and are relatives to the real-life miners involved in the historical strike.
Barrow Colliery was a coal mine in Worsborough, South Yorkshire, England. It was first dug in 1873, with the first coal being brought to the surface in January 1876. It was the scene of a major incident in 1907 when seven miners died. After 109 years of coaling operations, the mine was closed in May 1985.
