News on Screen

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 18th Year

Issue

Issue No.

3

Date Released

Nov 1964

Stories in this Issue:

• 1. ON THE SCREEN
• 2. TUESDAYs AT 7-30
• 3. SAFETY AT WORK
• 4. J.P.

Story

Story No. within this Issue

4 / 4

Summary

BFI Summary - Joe Preston, a retired miner from Donisthorpe.
NCB Commentary - Just over this bridge Leicestershire ends and Derbyshire begins.
Behind a famous miners’ pub, The Cricketts Inn, stand a few cottages.
One of them is the home of Joe Preston, a retired miner, who worked in the same pit for 49-years.
In the late September sunshine he’s in his garden with a friend, until it’s time to keep an appointment.
On Fridays Joe sets out for his old pit. His sister waves him off. Mrs. Adey, wife of the landlord of The Cricketts, watches him go by . And across the bridge into Leicestershire.
It’s a half-hours walk and Joe carries a neat, square parcel - it’s his soap and towel.
And here is his pit - Donisthorpe.
After a bathe he usually meets old cronies like Alf Ellis and Sam Jones. All three were miners for almost fifty years.
After collecting their pensions it’s back home - and straight into The Cricketts.
Working miners Harry Gibbins and Arthur Eatonx are already there. Landlord Hubert Adey is on cue.
"What d’you think of this, Joe?" asks Hubert Adey. It’s an old pick found recently at Donisthorpe - in a part of the pit where he worked. It’s more than a hundred years old.
Though the initials are "J.P." - they’re not Joe Preston’s. But whoever that other "J.P." was - we know who this "J.P." is. Men like him have helped to make the East Midlands Coalfield the important source of the nation’s energy - which it is today.

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases
The National Archives COAL 32   /13 Scripts for Mining Review