Glamorgan: a suitable case for treatment?

Abstract

The area of the South Wales coalfield extends from Monmouthshire in the East to the boundary of Carmarthen in the West. Elements of mining settlement move north over the Breckonshire border. Within this region, arbitrarily delineated on National Coal Board maps, lies an area which in the not too distant past ate, slept and bred coal. Today it is a dying region within a contracting industry. For every Cynheidre, sunk at an estimated cost of £20 million, there are ten Abercraves. The latter, only 40 miles from Cynheidre, is the most recent in a continuing series of closures which will eventually more than halve the 56 000 employed on the field. In general terms, Glamorgan must seem an atypical area to use for an industrial/educational survey of coal mining. Certainly the National Coal Board would have preferred at least a comparison between this most difficult region and, say, the every‐happy, ultra‐modern East Midlands. But in Glamorgan's favour it should be remembered that it is the only British county that built both its further education sector and high grammar school facility on a single industry and the aspirations of those who worked (and work) in it.