A concert to commemorate 40 years since the closure of the last local colliery will continue a proud history of remembrance in the villages of Highley and Alveley. When the final pit closed in Alveley in 1969 it left dozens out of work, but it has become the task of the community to ensure their mining heritage is not forgotten.
The Highley Brass Band, which will lead tomorrow’s concert, made its own fitting tribute to area’s mining history by changing its name to the Highley Colliery Band.
The band was founded around 1900 and ran until its demise in the 1960s, before it was reformed 16 years ago. It is believed its first conductor was a head pit surveyor called Horace Lloyd, who also owned Lloyds shop in High Street.
The Highley Mining Company began trading in 1877 and soon became a profitable enterprise. It was taken over by the National Coal Board in 1947 and employed over 1,000 men at its peak. Many of Highley’s houses and streets were built by the company to house the miners and their families, but in 1936 coal production moved to the other side of the River Severn in Alveley, before it was finally closed in 1969.
Dennis Bache, a parish councillor who has lived in Highley all his life, worked down the pit for three years, from 1947 until 1950, after serving in the army. He can remember vividly the day the pit closed and the dramatic effect it had on the village.
“It was the economic heart of the village,” he said. “When it closed the village virtually died. Employment was never replaced and there was a lot of despair.”
Alec John Breakwell, who lives in Woodhill Road, Highley, was a deputy from 1952 until 1965, before he forced to retire from pneumonia, caused by dust exposure while working down the pit.
“I really enjoyed my time down the pit,” he said. “My father and my grandfather – on both sides of the family – were miners, so I suppose it was in my blood.”
Mr Breakwell recalls the day the coal board decided to go ahead with a modernisation and reconstruction of the Highley pit in 1958, at a cost £1.5 million, which saved the jobs of 1,000 men and increased output to 360,000 tons of coal a year.
The move was meant to ensure production would continue for another 40 years, but when the pit closed 11 years later it meant 50 million tons of coal was left untouched and dozens of men were made unemployed.
“The Alveley shaft was deepened and a new pit bottom was made, which meant it was easier for the mine cars to haul the coal along,” he said. It was a huge operation at the time and took a lot of work.”
Mr Breakwell is also in possession of a letter from former head surveyor Horrace Lloyd addressed to his grandfather Ernest Lloyd Evans – a shaft sinker – asking him what he should expect when he drilled the first pit in Billingsley, back in 1877.
The mining tradition is still very much in the blood of Highley and Alveley’s communities and this can be seen through several fitting tributes that have occurred in the past 40 years.
A service was held in Highley last September and a plaque – engraved with the names of the 43 men killed since the opening of Billingsley Colliery in the 1870s – was unveiled and dedicated outside the Severn Centre, by local man Alan Watkins, whose father Richard was the last man to be killed at the Alveley Colliery.
The Highley Trail, designed by Saranjit Bird through the Highley Initiative, was also unveiled as another tribute to the miners. It includes seven plaques sited in various locations from the Severn Valley Country Park in Alveley, through to the village streets.
In 1994 Arthur Scargill – the president of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1981 to 2000 – joined a reunion of miners at the Highley Carnival, marking the 25th anniversary of the pit’s closure. The visit coincided with the unveiling of a 12ft by 15ft head pulley wheel, placed in the grounds of the Severn Valley Country Park where it remains today.
The park itself was opened in 1992 to transform the landscape of the former Highley and Alveley Collieries in to a haven for wildlife.
Household companies also owe much of their fortune to the former collieries too.
Indeed the Whittle Coach company – founded in Highley by mining brothers George, Jim and Wesley – first used a trap to transport miners to and from the local pit and to bring coal into the village.
The brothers initially continued to work down the mine but eventually decided to expand their business, buying their first charabanc in 1931, before other coach operators in Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Alveley were taken over in later years.
Tomorrow’s 40th anniversary concert will look back on all those memories and much more. All are invited to the Severn Centre tomorrow, from 7pm, to join the Highley Colliery Band and the Pelenna Male Voice Choir, from Wales.
Tickets, priced at £5, are available from the band or the centre’s reception and proceeds will go to the Highley First Responders.
For more information call band secretary Anthony James on (01746) 766954 or the Severn Centre on (01746) 860000.
