Tears as marchers mourn Maltby put closure

Maltby Colliery, near Rotherham, has been mothballed by owners Hargreaves Services, who decided it was no longer viable earlier this year.

On Saturday, some former miners were in tears as the colliery band led them and their former colleagues from the pit gates, which just outside the village, to the cemetery.

Inside the graveyard, there was service of “thanksgiving and prayer for the future” during which a piece of recently dug coal was buried next to the memorial to the 27 men who died in an underground explosion at Maltby in 1923.

The pit’s closure leaves just three deep coal mines operating in the UK - Kellingley, in North Yorkshire; Hatfield, in South Yorkshire; and Thoresby, in Nottinghamshire.

Maltby Colliery has produced coal for more than 100 years.

But Hargreaves decided earlier this year it was no longer viable on health and safety, geological and financial grounds.

The pit employed 500 workers when it shut and the firm said some of these have found work in other collieries.

Hargreaves also manages the nearby Hatfield Colliery, just outside Doncaster.

Maltby’s closure follows another recent blow to coal production in UK when the owners of the Daw Mill mine, in Warwickshire, announced it was closing following a devastating underground fire.

The marchers, who included families with children and pensioners on mobility scooters, crowded around the memorial, which marks the grave of an unknown miner killed in the 1923 disaster.

The service was led by Maltby vicar, the Rev Peter Craig-Wild.

He told the crowd: “This is inevitably a deeply sad occasion.

“We can’t help but think of the contribution that mining has made to this community, to parts of our country and, indeed, right across the world in the last 150 to 200 years.

“At this solemn moment stood here, we remember those who have worked in Maltby pit and those who have died in there working, particularly those who died in the pit disaster.”

Eric Hawley, 90, was born in Maltby and worked at the pit from 1937 to 1983, like his father before him.

Mr Hawley, who still lives in the same pit house he moved into in 1924, said: “I am sorry about it. I knew a lot of people who worked down the pit. Things got worse, I think after I finished.”

But Mr Hawley said he thought the closure would not have a dramatic impact on Maltby, which was originally built to house miners, because only a handful of the miners who worked at the pit at the end actually lived in the village.

Rother Valley MP Kevin Barron worked at the pit for 18 years when he was younger.

He said: “It’s very sad. But this industry’s an extractive industry and there’s not many reserves down in Maltby.

“I’m afraid what’s happened, besides issues of safety down the pit, what’s happened in world coal mining in the last few years had not been good and consequently this had come to an end after, well, it was 1908 when they reached the coal here.

“It’s a big day.”