News on Screen

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 5th Year

Issue

Issue No.

9

Date Released

May 1952

Stories in this Issue:

• 1. ROYAL VISIT
• 2. FIELD OF COAL
• 3. CROOK DRAWS
• 4. SCOOP

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: the Duke of Edinburgh visits pits near Manchester, including Mosley Common and Astley Green.
NCB Commentary - The little town of Tyldesley turned out in force early in April to welcome the Duke of Edinburgh, making first hand acquaintance with the mining industry.
At Mosley Common Colliery, accompanied by Sir Hubert Houldsworth, NCB chairman, and pit manager Richards, the Duke was inspecting new methods of coal winding. At the new Number 3 shaft, still being completed, which will deal with the output of all this colliery’s pits, he took a ride down in a hoppit. This will be a skipwinding shaft raising 600 tons an hour, and here’s what the Duke saw, 3,000 feet underground, where the shaft workers have only another 90 feet to go.
In contrast to this, the Duke went down one of Mosley Common’s other pit shafts with manager Aspinall in a standard four-deck cage. He was whisked down 1,200 feet to pit bottom, walked a mile to the face, and saw shotfiring and a new type of coal plough in operation.
A visit that wasn’t included in the Royal itinerary was the Duke’s look-in at the mammoth new coal preparation plant. Manager Arthur Williamson showed him how run-of-mine coal is cleaned and graded by the dense-medium process.
After a shower and lunch at the colliery canteen, on to Astley Green during the afternoon. Full-scale skipwinding was on inspection here, and the Duke was presented with a silver safety lamp as a souvenir by Area General Manager Lane.
A full day’s work, this - but the Duke couldn’t have chosen a better place to see for himself the modernising of our mines in progress.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 7 April 1952.

Keywords

Royalty; Food and cooking; Celebrations and festivals; Mining

Locations

England; Lancashire; Mosley Common Colliery

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.6 No.74 December 1952, p651.
The National Archives COAL 32   /3 Scripts for Mining Review, 1949-1956

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board