Closing the coalhouse door

THE closure of Ellington Colliery in Northumberland is a black day for the region, one which will go down in history as the end of deep mining in the North-East. But the death rattle of the last bastion of a once-proud industry was met with studied indifference by those closest to it.

The people of Ellington had certainly seen the pit closure coming - only a handful of them worked at the doomed colliery.

Most villagers are employed at the Alcan smelting plant in nearby Lynemouth, or the Pfizer factory a few miles further away in Morpeth, which ironically, also has a question mark hanging over its future.

Staff in the Bank Top convenience store that is Ellington's main shop shrugged and said the closure of the pit would not really affect them.

It was a similar story at the village's only pub, The Plough. Bar staff there said the bulk of the miners commute in from other former pit towns, like Ashington.

The county and district councils, however, made all the right noises about the "end of an era" and "blow to the local economy". Coun Michael Davey, leader of Northumberland County Council: "The closure of Ellington marks the final chapter in a remarkable way of life for many generations of families. This is the end of an era for the industrial heritage of Northumberland."

But in truth, mining has been on its deathbed for more than a decade. Yesterday was like the passing of an elderly relative who has lain comatose in hospital for years - an event tinged with sadness, but a sense of inevitability also hung in the air.

As he supped a pint at The Plough, a stone's throw from the pit gates, retired Ellington miner Ron Young, 63, says: "It is just a very sad time.

"I've worked down the pit all my life and what has happened today saddens me because it is the last mine to close. I left school at 15, as did all the lads in my class, and we worked all our lives in the mines."

The colliery was shut down just over a decade ago by the Government but re-opened as a private concern in January 1995, a bright future heralded by bold plans to access new reserves of coal by driving tunnels through a major geological fault known as the Causey Park Dyke.

But the first coal found had been affected by heat and did not burn well.

Because this "low volatile" coal was unsuitable, the miners instead began the difficult and dangerous job of extracting coal from beneath thick beds of sandstone, in shafts prone to flooding.

The writing was on the wall when a Government-commissioned report issued last year by mining consultants IMC Group said coal reserves at Ellington would be exhausted by early 2007. But the hundreds of millions of gallons of sea water that poured into the pit's only working shaft in the last two weeks put an end to any hopes of reaching even that date.

Yesterday's announcement brought a reaction of anger, hurt and bitterness from the National Union of Mineworkers, which refused to accept UK Coal's arguments about the pit being too dangerous to work. There were mutterings about secret plans to make millions out of property development on the site.

UK Coal chief executive Gerry Spindler dismisses talk of conspiracy theories and accusations that his company had been looking for a way out.

"I have 40 years experience in mining and not a day in property development," he says. "Re-starting that face would have serious safety implications. Potentially, it could lead to the water flow increasing to the point where people could get trapped."

Local MP Denis Murray, who worked at Ellington for 30 years as an electrician, was another who spoke up against the closure. "The problem is that UK Coal has only one production face and this is very vulnerable to any geological problem, of which this flood is one," he says. "The company simply is not prepared to invest. Instead, 340 people have been put out of work.

"The closure means the end of a 600-year-old tradition and will mean these skills passed on through father and son will be lost for ever. Personally, I am gutted. I know a great many people who work there, not just as workmates but as friends. It will be difficult for them to find new jobs."

But in terms of being a mining community for the last decade, Ellington has been no more alive, or dead, than any former pit village in County Durham. It has learned not to rely on its colliery, after watching the heart ripped out of hundreds of other North-East mining communities.

The loss of the region's pits in the 1980s and 1990s wreaked economic and social havoc that may never be fully repaired. Painful lessons have been learned and Ellington may fare better than many that went before it.

However, the closure of the last deep mine in the North-East has re-opened old wounds in the region's psyche.

Ron Young sums up the feelings. "I'm no different from the other lads - we all blame Margaret Thatcher. She did more damage to coal mining than anyone and what she did will not be forgotten."