Black Gold: The History of How Coal Made Britain

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In this brilliant social history, Jeremy Paxman tells the story of coal mining in England, Scotland and Wales from Roman times, through the birth of steam power to war, nationalisation, pea-souper smogs, industrial strife and the picket lines of the Miner’s Strike. The technological developments were nonetheless covered in detail, along with the experience of working in mines (I had no idea there was a ballot for soldiers to work in the mines during wartime) and the changes in legislation and ownership of the UK industry. It wasn't an exhaustive history and some aspects were dwelt on for longer than others - naval developments had much more coverage than railways and I was surprised that the traditional birthplace of the industrial revolution in Shropshire didn't get much of a mention. He had no time for landowners who got lucky from underground deposits, but his sympathies seemed divided between the capitalists who took risks and the miners, who were working and living in terrible conditions with awful health outcomes, but well-paid for manual workers despite being paid by piecework for most of the industry's existence. Mines were horrible places and miners were, except during a brief period between the successful strikes of the early 1970s and the failed one of 1984–5, poorly paid.

John Hoskyns, who ran the Number 10 Policy Unit from 1979 until early 1982, wrote to Thatcher, ‘The main value of a willingness to take on the miners is its deterrent effect: just like the nuclear bomb, you hope never to have to use it.Coal drove the Industrial Revolution and the primacy of the British Empire, but more than that, freed humans for the first time from the rhythm of nature. Huw Beynon and Ray Hudson have produced a very different kind of work on a subject that they have lived with for much of their lives. As Engels put it: 'there is no occupation in which a man may meet his end in so many diverse ways as this one'. Having previously read Jeremy's books on the British Empire and the First World War and found them very rewarding to read, I was happy to give a chance to what otherwise sounded like a book regarding a niche.

Both describe, Paxman in far more detail than Miller, the lives of miners and the horrible mining disasters that happened all too frequently. In the brilliantly intelligent and attentive style of his bestselling book The English, Paxman here offers a fascinating exploration of British identity, social class and history.When near the close of her book she clearly states her political views about the environment, I found that I agree with every one of them. Its history is one of humans and humanity, of a primeval struggle that encompasses enterprise, politics, religion, ingenuity, excitement and toil. I interpret literary form and genre as signals for habits of mind and ways of thinking about the world that have material causes as well as long-term effects” (2-3). There are quite a few mining accidents mentioned in the book, especially those that led to new laws and reform.

In addition to discussions of canonical works like Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, Sons and Lovers, The Mill on the Floss, and Hard Times, the book introduces us to Fanny Mayne’s Jane Rutherford: or, the Miners’s Strike, H.He did give a good impression of how unpleasant working in the mines was, even at such a distance from the reality, as well as the importance of coal until the late 20th century.

Beynon and Hudson, however, are unsentimental about the lives of miners and sceptical of the notion that the nationalisation of the mines in 1947 produced a golden age for those who worked in them. Undoubtedly a sterling effort at documenting the history of the coal industry and am glad I stuck with it despite a couple of hesitant moments when I was tempted to give up, just because of the sheer length of it.At times, Paxman’s capacity to combine confident generalisation with vivid detail reminded me of A J P Taylor, though I suspect that this might be partly because some of his historical knowledge does, in fact, derive from Taylor’s work.