2001 Coventry City programme and a glass of wine

Got there in the end

"It was the seventies [shrug emoji]"

Blood is the Price of Coal: Coal Communities, Health & Welfare in Britain & Beyond from the 19th Century to the Present This free one day conference aims to bring together researchers from higher education, libraries, archives, museums and community and campaign groups to explore the history of health and welfare in Britain’s coal mining industry. Conference programme: Panel 1: Disasters, safety and commemoration Oaks Colliery Disaster, 1866 Paul Darlow, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Paul Hardman, former NUM National Executive Officer The Safety Men: the Colliery Deputies union in the British Coal Industry Professor Peter Ackers, Loughborough University (Emeritus) Welcomed to Wrexham Sarah Castagnetti, The National Archives The 1959 Auchengeich Disaster: class, community and commemoration in Scotland’s coalfields Professor Jim Phillips, University of Glasgow Chair: Dr Jörg Arnold, Universität Augsburg Panel 2: Health The Violent Realities and Multiple Temporalities of a Miner’s Life Liv Robinson, Northumbria University ‘A wonderful difference to the home life’: pithead baths, pitwomen, and disability in twentieth-century British coalmining communities Lucy Jameson, Durham University Pneumoconiosis, Environment, and the Politics of Coal Miners' Health in Twentieth Century Britain Dr Andrew Seaton, University of Manchester A Special Case? Miners’ Health, Wage Relativities and the Fall of Heath’s Government Robert Rayner, University of Birmingham Chair: Professor Mathew Thomson, University of Warwick

Panel 3: Welfare “Feeding on the job?” Pit canteens in 1940s Britain Dr Ariane Mak, Université Paris Cité & IUF The Warmth of Home: Concessionary Fuel and Domestic Energy in British Coalfield Communities, 1945-1995 Dr Kathy Davies, Northumbria University Class, Culture and Democracy: the Miners Libraries of South Wales John Pateman, University of Leicester Deindustrialisation and the recreational provision of the nationalised British coalmining industry (1950s-1984) Dr Marion Henry, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Chair: Dr Quentin Outram, Society for the Study of Labour History Panel 4: Legacies Now The Dust Has Settled James O. Davies, Historic England 'The Big K: The Pit that shaped a community' Its legacy, a decade after closure. Judi Alston, One to One Development Trust Union Poorhouse to Union Leader - Herbert Smith, President of the Miners Federation of Great Britain 1922-1929. Kathryn Stainburn, Castleford Civic Society The Afterlife of Coal in Barnsley: Youth, Community, and Intergenerational Legacies Dr Kat Simpson, The University of Huddersfield Chair: Professor Keith Gildart, University of Wolverhampton Showcase of exhibitions, displays and posters: On Behalf of the People: Work, Community and Class in the British Coal Industry 1947-1994 Professor Keith Gildart, University of Wolverhampton Coal: a record of an industry Gary Winter, Historic England Poster of Mrs Sheila Truman Daniella Law, Historic England Glamorgan’s Blood: Dark Arteries, Old Veins – Exploring the Coal Collections at Glamorgan Archives Rhian Diggins, Glamorgan Archives When Coal was Clean: Soap and Smoke in Nineteenth Century Britain Oliver Marshall Mining Disasters in the Village of Worsbrough Maureen Gennard, Peter Fairham and David Bullock, Worsbrough Library Heritage Group

🚨 Conference booking open 🚨

Blood is the price of coal: Coal communities, health and welfare in Britain from the 19th century to the present

18 June 2026, University of Warwick

Booking form and additional information about the programme available at
warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...

Map of Britain made from early 20th century Ordnance Survey maps. It includes pins which link to digitised documents and links to a timeline.

New 1926 General Strike map online!

Using early 20th century Ordnance Survey maps, the online resource shows strike events (through archive sources) in their contemporary landscape.

Explore the map, digitised sources and more at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...

Advert with a cat sitting next to a litter tray, captioned 'Lift, Toss, Relax'.

Could be improved* by the thematic equivalent of 'Live, Laugh, Love'.

* In the loosest sense of the word.

That puts our school trip to the PYO strawberry farm thoroughly in the shade

Sloe and elderflower here

This has reminded me that I have gin...

A yellow-jacketed book published by Gollancz. It's The Sole Survivor/The Kynsard Affair by Roy Vickers. The quote reads 'Roy Vickers of "Dead Ends" fame here give you two "long-short" detective stories. What better entertainment than a "long-short"? Not a course: not a banquet: but a meal!"

Back on Twitter I had a long-running thread featuring classic yellow jacket books published by Gollancz, all of which demonstrate their rather eccentric approach to cover quotes. Today I saw this one, which is a prime example.

'What better entertainment than a "long-short"?'

Reservoir photographed in bright sunlight - blue sky, blue water. Rocks are in the foreground and a walkway leads from the right to a round building in the still water.

Stopped for a while.

He was more ILP than CP, though, characteristically, had visited Russia to provide Soviet unions with advice on his innovative new office filing system

I'm just up to the collapse of the strike and the underwhelming love triangle ramping up a bit. The red underliner seemed more of a regional Trades Council Lib-Lab'er. George Blackburn, "the Movement's official apologist", seems to be the nearest, but he's in the wrong TUC job for WMC.

With the added complication of thinly veiled pen-portraits of key figures. People who would be obvious if you knew their mannerisms but much less so if you're only familiar with the names. I'm still trying to work out who, if anyone, Citrine's alter ego is.

Cat curled up on red and white blanket.

Cat with disgruntled ears looking towards a TV with a picture of medals on it.

New blanket and critical viewing of the Olympics.

Tends to depend on the mood of the cat...

Side view of a cat partially sitting on a charity shop jigsaw of a cat. Both are black, white and orange, one is not entirely accurately drawn.

Some flatbreads on a plate, fresh from the frying pan.

A predictable cat and a less predictable pair of flatbreads.

The setting is 11 Downing Street here but there are some similarities with the scene setting in the big meeting, including the "unemotional" Arthur Pugh as Chair, the ever present fug of cigarette smoke and the wired, tired sense of excitement
cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/coll...

Extract from 'Clash' by Ellen Wilkinson: "No, really. It wasn't what you said, it was your awful familiarity with initials. You talked about the A S.L.E.F. and the A.U.B.T.W. and the A.S.E. and - oh, scores I can't remember. And you seemed to know what all of them meant." Joan laughed. "It's awful, I know. Sort of besetting sin of the Labour Movement. we think in initials. ..."

A few chapters in, and I'm finding it interesting in terms of giving a sense of the atmosphere, the sort of human buzz that rarely comes through the official documents.

The bit about initials is also eminently relatable.

Massive overflowing original file of papers.

Front of massive overflowing file of papers showing a label with the caption 'Miscellaneous'. There is no date.

Waves with the traditional vast file of 'Miscellaneous', undated.

Count the lock out as well and you'll have til November, a much more leisurely read than the nine days

That looks great, and thanks for going through and doing the translation.

...Francis Kinge of Bovingdon, Herts, yeoman, took on property in Upper Gibbs Crofte, Chesham, Bucks. It had previously been surrendered into the hands of John Belfeild, gent, and Jone Gate, customary tenants of the manor, by John Gregory of Leyhill, Bucks, blacksmith, on 20 Sep 1676.

You might want to get someone else to check this as it's about 20 years since I last worked with manorial deeds and I lost the thread at least once, but I think that the gist is: at the Court Baron of the Manor of Isenhampstead Latimers (Lord of Manor: William, Earl of Devon) on 11 Dec 1679...

Definitely Latin. It's a manorial court deed transferring property. My Latin's fairly rusty but I can have a go if a medievalist doesn't pick it up.

Photo of whiteboard headed 'What have you seen or heard in the Arboretum February', including sightings of rain, more rain, sparrowhawk, hare, woodpecker, sausage dog and pheasant.

Have at least managed successful sightings of rain, more rain and sausage dog this month.

Thanks! I was pleased with how it turned out, makes the blue less of a solid block.

She tends to photograph either as teeth-achingly sweet or Kray Twin.

Close up of glaring cat.

I've switched to a vanilla flavoured tablet that can be ground up and hidden in Lik-e-lix for similar reasons

It’s time: how to get your department off X With a flurry of HE professionals leaving the platform, here’s how to notify your followers and provide alternative options for staying up to date

@nedpotter.bsky.social has written various pieces about the University of York's experience and library social media migration in general including this THE piece - www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/its-t...

The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, stopped posting on X in late 2024, and the main UoW Library account no longer posts on there. Both have kept their accounts existing but inactive to reduce risk of impersonation. Archives and Records Association is no longer active there either.