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E-book Coal Country : The Meaning and Memory of Deindustrialization in Postwar Scotland

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Penilaian

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On Sunday 16 September 2018, several hundred people gathered by the Auchengeich Mining Disaster Memorial in the village of Moodiesburn, North Lanarkshire. They included retired miners, trade union representatives and local councillors alongside members of local football teams and a choir made up of schoolchildren. The annual memorial service is timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Auchengeich pit disaster in which forty-seven men lost their lives due to an underground fire on 18 September 1959.1 Most of the people present had little direct experience of coal mining, and many participants in the service had come of age after Lanarkshire’s last colliery, Cardowan, closed in 1983. During the service, Reverend Mark Malcolm, from the Church of Scotland’s Chryston Parish, paid tribute to the fallen men by reading from Psalm 23, commemorating those that ‘walk through the darkest valley’.2 The annual service powerfully evokes collective memories of industry which continue to shape consciousness and identities in the towns and villages of the Scottish coalfields after deep mining itself has ceased. A permanent physical reminder is embedded in the landscape: the memorial statue of a 1950s-era British coal miner complete with cap lamp, battery and pick-axe. In a technical sense, deindustrialization can be understood as the decreasing contribution of industrial activities to gross domestic product and employment. But deindustrialization’s impact was as keenly felt in cultural and political terms as it was economically. This volume traces the socioeconomic transformation brought to the coalfields by these developments. The closure of mines, steel mills and factories fundamentally altered livelihoods and associations by challenging a strongly held social order in towns and villages which had developed around coal mining. Colliery closures and the experience of labour market alterations have significantly contributed to the questioning of Scotland’s position within the Union and the realignment of the politics of class and nationhood since the mid twentieth century. These changes were not sudden. They unravelled over several decades. Between 1965 and 1967, the workforce at Auchengeich and the adjacent Western Auchengeich collieries faced a different threat as the National Coal Board’s (NCB) closure programme intensified. Union representatives, with the support of junior managerial staff, attempted to convince the Board that the coal reserves in the area were a profitable proposition.3 From mid century onwards, coal faced intensifying competition from petroleum and nuclear fuels. Contraction was incremental and phased, as well as regionally varied. The Scottish coalfields were permanently reconfigured. Its settlements had principally grown during the previous 150 years under the impetus of industrialization.4 From the onset of coal’s nationalization in 1947, mining developed to match the shifting priorities of the NCB. The pace of investment and divestment was dictated by coal’s place within UK energy policies, especially as they related to electricity generation.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

941.1 GIB c

Penerbit

London : University of London Press., 2021

Deskripsi Fisik

322 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781912702589

Klasifikasi

941.1

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

History of Scotland

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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