They can reclaim the landscape, but they can’t remove the memories.
For generations boys and men went underground to bring out the coal under Cannock area. Now, all finished, all gone. Mining wasn’t just a job, a dirty, hazardous job at that. It was a community, a mesh between people and families, creating bonds and understandings. Mining towns were proud towns. Pit mounds and pit heads were beacons in the landscape of a way of life which spanned the ages.
The closure of Littleton Colliery in 1993 brought down the final curtain in the Cannock district. But we can still remember this aspect of the area’s heritage with a selection of pictures from our archives. Of course, they only scratch the surface of the local mining tradition, but they do help us celebrate and honour a proud, disappeared industry, and those who devoted their lives - and in some cases gave their lives - to it.
- Take a trip back to Wolverhampton in 1969 with 61 nostalgic pictures sure to bring back memories - view them here.
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1. Final farewell to our four-legged friends
Cannock Chase miners are pictured saying goodbye to one of the last three pit ponies in the Midlands. The four-legged redundancies were the end of a nostalgic partnership between man and pony at Cannock Wood Colliery, in 1969. | Express & Star archive
2. Going against the grain
Cannock mining college in September 1957. A grain storage site was converted to a school for young miners. Recruits attended before going down the pits. | Express & Star archive
3. A painful filling
The original caption to this April 1974 picture was: "Many of Britain's 100,000 mine shafts were never properly filled in. But today the Coal Board works like a good dentist to fill the cavities. At Cannock Wood Colliery, which closed last year, three shafts are getting 25,000 tons of hardcore and hard durable caps... The work is done by the West Midland area shaft team led by specialist engineer Reg Thorneycroft and senior overman Joe Bishop, who once worked at the 'Wood' as a safety officer..." | Express & Star archive
4. Cap this
Shaft team overman Joe Bishop and acting electrical engineer Bill Bolton check the top of a 225-yard shaft at Cannock Wood during the same operation in 1974. | Express & Star archive