Britain’s ‘last miner’ swaps the pits for corporate world

“THERE’S going to be no coal mines left and this documentary will be something to look back on. That’s why I agreed to be in it – a piece of history to look back on,” said Russell Jones, one of Britain’s last miners to be made redundant.

Having worked in the pits since he was 16, Barnsley-born and bred shift manager Russell had been accustomed to the dark, dangerous conditions and knew nothing of the corporate world 800 metres above him.

That was, until he and 450 colleagues were made redundant from the last and largest deep coal mine in the UK, marking the end of deep-pit coal mining in Britain.

The BBC’s The Last Miners documentary follows Russell – who was known as Jonesy down the pits – and his colleagues as they work their last five weeks at Kellingley Colliery.

“I always liked working underground, working in pit it’s a close-knit family, you get very attached to people because you’re working in a dangerous environment and you’ve got to watch each other’s backs every day to make sure you’re not putting each other in danger,” Russell said.

Most of Russell’s colleagues left the industry during the miner’s strike of 1984 and when Selby Corfield shut in 2004, but Russell stuck with it and instead climbed to the top, becoming shift manager of Kellingley Colliery.

“I don’t miss the job, I don’t miss the dangerous conditions or the hot, pitch black environment underground, I just miss my work mates.

“It felt really emotional on the last day, it were like somebody had died. You think of these big tough miners but when it’s time to leave, they’re in floods of tears. It was the saddest thing, saying goodbye to all the lads – it was our way of life, gone. You know you’re losing your livelihood and everything but the biggest thing for us was losing each other.”

The two-part documentary which focuses on the lives of four miners, also highlights the struggle to find employment in a world unfamiliar to them.

Russell added: “All lads who wanted to work have all got fixed up albeit on less money, but we weren’t naïve enough to think that we’d go out into outside world and be on same sort of money that we commanded underground”

After the closure of Kellingley Colliery last December, Russell secured job at family run motoring firm, JCT600 as a driver and from there has worked his way up to becoming a trainee account manager at Mercedes-Benz York.

“It was daunting, much like going on your first day of school. Having worked in the pits for all my life I felt a bit institutionalised. When you’ve been in same place with same sort of people and never worked with women before, it’s a big change.

“With most of pit lads, they’ve worked at pits since they were 16 and gone through life not knowing anything else, it’s really hard for them because mining skills aren’t really transferable and there’s nowhere else to go to.

“But once employers get to see these lads, they’ll see that they’re really hard working, reliable, and have probably done 30 years and never had a day off so they’re not going to let people down and that’s the way you’ve got to look at it.”