Photographer returns to south Wales mines after 1980s strike

Ray Lawrence, NUM lodge secretary at Celynen South for 14 years, worked as an electrician for 25 years in the mine and joined Roger as he reached the pit on his six-day walk.

“It’s hard to imagine it now,” said Ray. “I’m looking around and it’s so peaceful. But 40 years ago there was a dirty great big hole in the ground there and every morning 500 or 600 men would disappear down there.

“The place was vibrant. There was the rattle of the trams, the whirr of the winder, everything was going on, it was alive,” he said.

“There was a fence where everyone would stop and have a cigarette when they came up or before they went down. It was a real, living experience.

“Mining is a difficult thing to explain. To people outside of it, they think it’s a dirty, horrible job, which it was, but the camaraderie made up for that and it’s hard to let it go. You talk to men 40 years after and the majority of them say ‘I’d go back tomorrow if I could’.”