The bitter final showdown over British coal, as sun sets on ‘dirtiest fuel’
Al Jazeera
The county of Cumbria in Northern England has become the battleground for a final war which is raging over plans to build a new coal mine.
Whitehaven, Cumbria, northern England – “We were five miles (8km) out from here, 2,000 feet (609 metres) underground.”
David Cradduck, 77, used to be one of many men who would line up to begin their descent each morning through a vast network of mining shafts and subterranean tunnels that took them deep under the Irish Sea.
Hundreds like him flowed in and out of the Haig Pit deep mine until this colliery, like many other coaling sites in the area, shut in the mid-1980s. Now, pointing to the marine expanse before us, Cradduck proudly recounts the exploits of these men’s craft and labour.
“The coal in that shaft is about 600 feet (183 metres) deep,” he says. “We went through the coal and then dug tunnels out until we met the coal seams.
“Then we followed the coal seams – they dipped to the southwest. It’s amazing to think, really. Every day down there for 20 years of my life.”
