i just want to salute those welsj miners who bought they're own mine with they're reduncancy money!

LONDON — The Welsh miners who invested their own money in keeping Tower Colliery going for 13 years ceased operations Friday because the coal had run out.

Miners with blackened faces, their families and friends carried flags and banners in a short procession marking the end of operations. One red banner, bearing the number 1831, recalled the year that the socialist red flag was first raised in Hirwaun, the nearby town.

"Goodbye Tower, and thanks," another banner read.

Tower Colliery, described as the last deep coal mine in south Wales, was saved from closure in 1994 when the miners chipped in 8,000 pounds each from their severance pay and borrowed 2 million pounds to buy the operation.

Tyrone O'Sullivan, who led the worker buyout, described the mine as his mistress for 40 years, and was sad to say goodbye.

"I'm filled with dual emotion," said O'Sullivan, 62. "I am very proud to have done what we have done in the last 13 years _ to take on society and make it work."

About 120 of the 270 miners at Tower Colliery are expected to move to jobs at open pit mines _ the Unity mine at Cwmgwrach or the Aberpergwm mine.

"For the first three or four months in 1995 we struggled, but we had a go at it and it has been a success for 13 years," said miner John Wood, 57.

"We have never had to lay men off and we've had a weekly wage. It's sad but it's something we have to accept: the coal has been exhausted."

Coal has been mined at the Tower site, near Aberdare, since 1805. There are now just half a dozen significant underground mines in the United Kingdom.

-----------------------------------------------------

http://www.net-cymru.co.uk/graphics/weh-twr1.jpg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/560000/images/_564000_miners300.jpg

Why would they invest in something with no future?

Why would they invest in something with no future?

that the power of LOVE

Why would they invest in something with no future?

???? But it DID have a future. They managed to work it for another full 13 years and made money every week.

Why would they invest in something with no future? It only shut because it ran out of coal.

Can they not find another pit to work now?

It only shut because it ran out of coal.

Can they not find another pit to work now?

The first statement is correct. Your question is clearly answered in the last sentence of the original post. (Don't forget to read everything.) ;)

Can't find the original to quote accurately, but Derek Walcott's mother was from the Welsh coal country - this is approximately the second and third stanzas of "Streams"

- - -
Streams flashed there like buckles, rooted handshakes of wrists
with corduroy voices would close on mine
and I heard a language built of wet stones and mists
in each stubborn bilingual sign
beneath the slag hills I heard the rage of coal black abolitionists
while in the tattered dress of a lacetorn stream in the sun
the heather haired princess bowed with her milkwhite stallion
into the embroidered leaves in the language of Taliesin.

But I saw Wales' capital sin, I saw Rhonda afflicted with
a mineral silence, and a seine trawl empty Aberystwth
Between stricken chimney stacks on smokeless Sabbaths
starlings floated in cinders, curraghs
slept face down on sand, no hymn
rose from the dark throats of the mines, and if above them was a lark's
song, it was the only engine with power To Be A Pilgrim
over paradisal miles in the country of Taliesin.
- - - -