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Date: 1973-11-30
Bardon Mill colliery closed with the loss of 240 jobs. It was in the same month as 15 years earlier new pit baths were opened at a cost of ?32,000. The National Coal Board said that the 33 year-old drift had ceased to be viable. [In October 1999, an illustrated talk was given by former National Coal Board official, John Carrick, who came to know the drift mine and its miners when he visited Bardon Mill to pay out the wages. Deteriorating working conditions of water and wafer-thin coal seams made the closure of the 33 year-old NCB pit inevitable. There were mixed feelings as the miners bid farewell to King Coal. One said ?It was like losing an old friend,? but another commented ?They should have closed the bloody place when the rats came back!? One man who worked the last shift was Johnny Peadon of Acomb, who toiled in seven pits over 47 years, having begun at Greenside as a lad of 14. He worked as a deputy for 20 years and describes it as the wettest pit he had ever worked in. There were no mixed feelings for him when he walked out of the pit for the last time. ?By then, I had had enough of being a miner.? Bardon Mill colliery was the largest local employer.]
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