The Rise and fall of the South Wales Coal Industry, with a view of Port Talbot and The Afan Valley, Afan Powell and Glyn Thomas, P/b A5 135pp, not the shortest title in the world but describes the book, the authors are leading members of the South Wales Miners Museum, every other page is a photograph provided by the museum. It sets out the Coal story, there useful statistics such as a table of Welsh Colliery openings and closures and a table of Welsh Mine accidents £6.95

Children of the Mines in the Cynon Valley, Cynon Valley History Society, p/b A5 41pp Aberdare is in the Cynon Valley, a short chapter describes the mines in the area, the book provides records and information about child labour and individual cases from a report Robert Hugh Franks, includes ages, working conditions, pay accidents etc £2.50

Rhondda Collieries, David J. Carpenter,

0 7524 1730 4

When King Coal came to Rhondda in the early nineteenth century he changed the face of the valley forever. Where sheep and small farming communities had dotted the hills there sprang up a multitude of collieries and the industrial working towns they supported. By 1911 42,000 men and boys were employed in Rhondda’s fifty-three collieries, producing a sixth of all the coal in South Wales.

The dramatic growth was not to last, however, and from the 1950s onwards an equally dramatic decline saw the Welsh Coalfield beset by closures and redundancies. Today, attempts to bring new forms of employment to the area have involved redevelopment of most of the colliery sites and, indeed, it can be hard to see the remaining traces of the industry that built the Rhondda.

In Rhondda Collieries David Carpenter has compiled a vivid record of the valley’s mining heritage, from the daily working of the mines to the sudden tragedy of disasters. Putting the history in perspective, he also shows the use to which colliery sites are put today. Some continue in a commercial role with shops and warehouses while others, like Cambrian in Clydach Vale or Tynbedw , near Pentre, have been returned to nature, recapturing the ‘emerald greenness of the meadows’ that flourished here before King Coal.

price will be £9.95 +p&p