The Melting Pot

by Barrie Jones

Coal is a ‘dirty’ fuel and its emissions are partly responsible for air pollution and global warming with their adverse impact upon our health and climate change.  Strange that 50 years ago coal was the primary domestic fuel for our heating needs.  Since the mid 1970s I have not lived in a house with a coal fire and my sons have no knowledge of how to light or manage one.  As well as knowing how to clean a fire grate and light a fire, there was one other thing I learned when helping bring in my grandfather’s concessionary coal delivery; that was how to manage your coal shed efficiently.

At my parent’s house on the Keir Hardie Estate coal was delivered by the coalman by the sack full and was dropped unceremoniously into the coal bunker.  Over the weeks as the coal pile diminished, scrabbling about for suitable sized lumps of coal amongst the ‘small’ coal became ever more difficult.  It was so much easier in my grandfather’s coal shed with his system of coal storage.

The concessionary coal scheme was a perquisite for all employees of the National Coal Board (NCB) as part of their contract of employment.  The concession had been in existence long before the nationalisation of the coal industry in January 1947, with individual mines, lodges or districts negotiating schemes as part of their wage bargaining.  Attempts were made in the 1950s to standardise the various schemes within the industry but with little success as some districts faced a reduction to their existing arrangements.  I am not sure how much coal my grandfather received each year or how many deliveries it needed.  In 1951 it was estimated that some district schemes provided about 10 tons per year.

The concession still persists today as the Government’s National Concessionary Fuel Scheme (NCFS).  The Government became legally required to implement the scheme in 1994 following the privatisation of the coal industry.  The scheme provides free solid fuel or a cash allowance for fuel for ex employees of the NCB or British Coal Corporation (BCC).  Widows or widowers of ex employees are eligible to receive free fuel or cash allowances.  Fuel is delivered on average about every 4 to 5 weeks, while cash allowances are paid every three months.  In 2010, nationally, there were about 15,400 recipients of free fuel and 68,700 recipients of cash allowances, an overall total of just 84,000 recipients!  Then the average annual quantity of fuel was 4 tons at an average cost of £1,400.  It is estimated that the scheme will eventually peter out by 2064 on the deaths of the final recipients.  The demise of the coal industry accelerated over the 40 years after the Second World War.  In 1921 in south Wales alone there were 270,000 miners, and at the onset of nationalisation in 1946 there were 116,000 miners in Wales.

Dad (Caradog Jones) retired in 1961 at the age of 65, and afterwards never enjoyed good health, suffering from a weak chest and heart, the result of ‘coal dust and woodbines’.  Sometime in the mid 1960’s when in my mid-teens my father instructed me to “go down and help Dad bring in his coal”.  My grandparents lived at no. 12 Union Street, Thomastown, and the coal was delivered by lorry and ‘dropped’ on the kerbside outside their terraced house.  Fortunately, theirs was an end of terrace property with a side gate onto their garden; the coal shed was at the end of the garden, so no need to carry the coal with our dusty shoes through the passageway.  Coal isn’t a particularly heavy stone and large blocks although bulky can be carried short distances with relative ease, a full bucket of coal is another matter altogether and takes more effort.  Dad was stubborn and would insist on doing his share of the workload, so I just helped halve both the workload and the time taken to clear the road.

The coal had to be collected in precise stages: firstly the large blocks had to be carried in and only broken if too heavy to carry, these blocks were laid about a third of the way into the coal shed and laid on top of each other until a wall of blocks was constructed.  Next, the smaller lumps carried in buckets were tipped behind the wall and piled up against the back of the shed wall until a mound of coal lumps was formed. Finally, all the ‘small’ coal and scrapings from the road was carried in and deposited in front of the wall of coal.  A low wooden board across and inside the entrance of the shed door stopped the ‘small’ coal from spilling out.

Dad’s system of storage makes sense when you consider how the coal was collected from the shed when the coal bucket/scuttle needed filling for my grandparent’s many fires.  Firstly suitable lumps of coal were collected from the mound at the back, if too large to be considered manageable for the grate then they would be broken into smaller lumps in front of the wall.  As the mound of coal diminished then the larger blocks were taken from the wall and broken up and the lumps placed on the mound at the back of the shed.  Over the weeks breaking the coal into manageable lumps raised up the layer of ‘small’ coal.  ‘Small’ coal was never wasted, once sieved to retrieve the smaller pieces; the remaining finer coal was used to ‘bank’ the fires when a full blaze was not needed.  Covering the fire with a blanket of small coal maintained the heat but slowed down the burn.  To stop the small coal from falling through the coals, moistening the coal with water helped bind it.  Emptying the teapot dregs on the fire at regular intervals was a good way to maintain binding.  The only tools needed in the coal shed was the ‘coal’ hammer to break the large lumps, a short handled spade for scooping up the small coal, and a sieve/riddle, all conveniently hanging from nails on the shed wall.

I don’t know if my grandfather’s system was commonplace or how long this method had been used in my ‘family’, Dad was one of five brothers who worked underground and their father, grandfather and great-grandfather were coal miners before them.  I presume that hardly anyone in this country stores their coal in this fashion today.