What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[Dave Mann]

I've never understood why M Thatcher is blamed for closing coal mines, by the early 1960s Britain had 50m tons of coal stockpiled in every available disused quarry in the country and during the 1960 s coal consumption really fell off and under Lord Robens 406 mines were closed. I came across some photos of slack coal from Peak Forest being loaded into railway wagons from grossly overloaded Bedford S trucks at Dove Holes. Now Peak Forest doesn't have any coal mines just limestone quarries and it took a long while finding the answer, eventually I wrote to the book's author a retired locomotive driver who worked the trains involved. From his information I worked out that about 84,000 tons had been stored at Perseverance quarry Peak Forest with an further unknown quantity at Grin Low quarry south of Buxton. From there I learnt more from the National coal mining museum, a rather embarrassing situation which has naturally been kept quiet.