The Pit - Public Service Broadcasting

As the cage dropped suddenly into darkness

The working morning had begun

Step in and see how, for the last quarter of a century, your coal was won

And how it is still won, twenty four hours 'round the clock

You’re in a two hundred yard long coal face now

Temperature often reached eighty degrees

It’s three feet six inches high from floor to roof

None knew when the foul air underground might not cause a disastrous explosion

Or a landslide might at any moment bring down the roof and walls of the tunnel

The people of Britain are building

Drilling out from their native rock

The foundations of the future

To coal we must now turn again

For all the strength that we shall need

In the years to come