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Clip description
To compete with the cheap price of oil, the coal industry was forced to modernise and mechanise the coal pits with equipment that displaced workers. The narration by Leonard Teale describes the subsequent high unemployment and voices the frustrations of the mining families. A miners’ spokesperson addresses a crowd of miners and their families.
Curator’s notes
The emotive narration accompanying the close-ups of grim and weary faces is a good example of cinematic techniques persuasively used to present a political point. While the WWF Film Unit frequently dramatised scenarios or re-created scenes for the camera, the ‘actors’ in their films were all drawn from the labour movement. For this film, miners and their families play versions of themselves.
