Black Gold

My  copy of this history of Britain’s coal industry comes garlanded with approving quotes from several publications not known for their left-of-centre views. The Mail on Sunday even goes so far as to call it, ‘A terrific history’, and I don’t recall that paper exactly rushing to defend the miners during the 1984-85 strike. So part of me was expecting an anti-union tract, and I’m not up for that. But I’m also a fan of Jeremy Paxman’s histories – his Great Britain’s Great War is a favourite book of mine – so I bought it and started to read.

Well, it’s no anti-union tract, although the unions don’t always come off in the best light. (Arthur Scargill, in particular.) But it’s also no shout-out for the mine owners and managers. Coal, as the book goes to lengths to describe, might have powered Britain’s Industrial Revolution and given it a head start over other nations, but the men, women and children who actually mined it worked and lived in appalling conditions, with little or no regard for their personal safety. The pit ponies often received better treatment.

My old trade union friend David Hawkins might say otherwise, but it seems to me that Black Gold walks a fine balanced - and very, very readable - line through a history of an industry that undoubtedly helped make Britain great, but then faltered and declined as its productivity dropped, pollution led to calls for cleaner energy, and other countries stepped in to provide coal at more competitive prices.

This is definitely staying on my shelf for a second read some day.