Phil Weekes on the Closure of Tower Colliery

Posted on January 20th, 2008 filed in History, Politics, Valleys, Wales

What would the late and great Phil Weekes have to say about the closure of Tower Colliery this week ?

In 1974 at a Conference held during the Year of the Valleys, Philip Weekes described himself thus :

I have all the contrasts, the contradictions, the cussedness, the emotions that you will find in the typical valleys miner, which is what I claim to be. My devotion to the Valleys has no logic that I can discover; it seems to be rooted in emotion. An emotion that made me demand that I be removed from an exciting job as Director-General of Mining in London – to run the largest, geologically-toughest, most unprofitable coalfield in Britain, and probably, Western Europe.

Weekes was a genius communicator but even he would now find it difficult to articulate his disappointment at the demise of our old way of life in the Valleys.