What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[Tony Griffiths]

As we were closing the last Welsh anthracite mines, Germany was keeping theirs open using the quite proper excuse that they were a "National Security Issue". BTW four times as many coal mines were closed when the socialists were in power than the conservatives. Was the reason for most closures politics? No, the pits were uneconomic to exploit further and demand for coal was tapering off. When I last drove through Germany five years ago, I came across a giant open-cast mine whose vast extent one could just make out between the forest of windmills that appeared to surround it. French coal mining? In the north, one of the giant spoil heaps has been turned into a rather attractive dry ski slope.