Education, work and social mobility in Britain’s former coalfield communities: reflections from an oral history project

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on an oral history project which focuses on former coalminers’ experiences of education and training. It presents the stories of five participants, all of whom undertook significant programmes of post-compulsory education during or immediately after leaving the coal industry and achieved a degree of social mobility over the course of their working lives. The paper compares and contrasts their experiences with those which now exist in Britain’s former coalmining communities which, it is argued, have been substantively attenuated over time, especially for young men. Whilst it is evident that individual choice and motivation can play an important role in helping (or hindering) young people’s journeys through education and employment, the central argument of the paper is that individual labour market success lies at the intersection of structure and agency – although the data presented also demonstrate the extent to which opportunities available to young men in the former coalfields have been diminished by de-industrialisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• social mobility
• coalfield communities
• oral history

Introduction

There has been much talk in Britain and elsewhere about the White working classes becoming angry, marginalised, or ‘left behind’, both in absolute terms and vis-à-vis other sections of society (Goodhart 2017; Smyth and Simmons 2018). Rhetorically, such discourses are commonly associated with claims that working-class youth have somehow failed to ‘upskill’ themselves to meet the demands of globalisation and the rise of a new knowledge economy (Avis 2016). Meanwhile, Britain’s former coalfield communities, which are generally ‘Whiter’ and more working class than the rest of the UK, are often presented as particularly problematic in policy discourse – and, in some ways, this is understandable. White working-class boys especially tend to perform less well than other groups at school and only 11 per-cent of young men from the former coalfields go to university, compared to almost 50 per-cent of young people nationally. Unemployment, poverty, and ill-health are also considerably higher in the former coalfields than UK averages, and those jobs which exist are disproportionately low skilled and low paid (Beatty, Fothergill, and Gore 2019). But it is more than this. A great deal has been written about the demise of the coal industry, especially the mass redundancies which followed the Great Strike of 1984–85 – a bitter year-long struggle ending in resounding defeat for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), then Britain’s most powerful trade union. Turner (2000) and Waddington et al. (2001) have, for example, written about the toxic effects of pit closure on local communities including family breakdown, vandalism, boredom, and alcohol and drug abuse. More recently, Nicky Stubbs (2022) has described how de-industrialisation profoundly damaged all aspects of social, cultural, and political life in the former pit village where he lives. Forced de-industrialisation has, in other words, had a chronic debilitating effect on the fabric of daily life in the former coalfields (Beatty, Fothergill, and Gore 2019).

Much time, energy and resources have been spent trying to regenerate former coalfield communities, but it is safe to say that they have not managed to reinvent themselves in the same way as some of Britain’s major cities – many of which are now presented as vibrant urban conurbations, even if large pockets of deprivation continue to exist in such locales. The former coalfields, like the so-called rustbelt communities in Australia and the USA, remain deeply unfashionable places (Thomson 2002). There has nevertheless been something of a revival of interest in the social and cultural legacy of coal (Simmons and Simpson 2022) and there has also been an increased focus on processes of schooling in the former coalfields of late (see, for example, Bright 2011; Gibbs and Henderson-Bone 2022; Richards 2018). Much less has, however, been written about post-compulsory education and training in former coalmining communities.

This paper is based on findings from a broader oral history project on former mineworkers’ experiences of education and training in the British coal industry (see Walker 2015, 2022). The data is taken from a programme of narrative interviews conducted between 2011 and 2020 and presents the stories of five former colliers – Jack, Rob, Sam, Pete, and Larry, all of whom became coalminers immediately after leaving school and undertook a variety of education and training programmes before and (in most cases) after leaving the coal industry. Whilst it cannot be claimed that their stories reflect the experiences of all former coalminers, the findings address a significant gap in knowledge and go some way towards challenging popular assertions about inherently negative attitudes to learning which supposedly characterise White working-class communities. The data also allow us to critically reflect on education, work, and social change in general and the relationship between education and social mobility in particular, especially in post-industrial settings such as Britain’s former coalfields communities.

Official discourses portray education as providing a range of positive functions for the individual, the economy, and society more broadly. These include fuelling economic competitiveness, promoting social inclusion, preventing violent extremism and, of course, driving social mobility. Education has, however, also been deeply implicated in the production and reproduction of inequality in terms, for example, of gender, ‘race’, ethnicity and, of course, social class – and there is an extensive literature on education and social class going back to the likes of Corrigan (1979), Willis (1977), and Jackson and Marsden (1966). More recently, Diane Reay (2017) has written about how education has often been associated with ridicule, failure and humiliation for working-class pupils and students. On the other hand, it is also reasonable to say that many working-class children, young people, and adults have benefited socially, culturally, and economically from education in schools, colleges, and universities, as well via workplace learning and the various forms of informal and community-based education which were a feature of many coalfield communities (Simmons and Simpson 2022). It is moreover clear that the men who took part in our research all achieved a degree of upward social mobility and that in each case, education played a substantial role in facilitating such a process. Whilst their stories vary somewhat, they nevertheless provide some significant insights into the complex relationship between education and social mobility, especially in terms of the interplay between structure and agency. On one hand, our data suggest that individual motivation, ambition, and choice played a significant part in facilitating our participants’ journeys through education and work – in other words, individual actors have a degree of agency in navigating their career and life trajectories, and our data suggest that participation in post-compulsory education can play a significant role in this respect. But the role played by structural forces, such as the availability of meaningful labour market opportunities in facilitating social mobility, is also unmistakable (see Bukodi and Goldthorpe 2018). So, whilst we recognise the importance of individual actions and choices, they can, we argue, only be properly understood within the context of broader social and economic change and its role in shaping the opportunities and choices available to those concerned (see Giddens 1984).

The first section of the paper provides an overview of the research upon which the paper is based. The second section presents data from the interviews and is split into four subsections which highlight some of the key events in our participants’ journeys through education and employment. The third section locates their trajectories in broader context of the changing nature of education and work in the former coalfields. The paper concludes by reflecting on current opportunities for social mobility in such locales. These, we argue, continue to be located at the nexus of structure and agency, although it is evident that legitimate opportunities for working-class youth have been attenuated by de-industrialisation, especially for young men.

Materials and methods

The five men who took part in the research were each born in the north of England between the 1930s and the 1960s and all went into coalmining immediately after leaving school, as was commonplace in many coalfield communities at that time. Effectively, they are part of the last generation to have worked in the British coal industry. The participants were employed in different capacities including coalface work, mine surveying, and colliery management and all undertook a variety of vocational education and training programmes at different points during their working lives. These ranged from the basic mining certificate up to and including degree-level qualifications. But, whilst the participants constitute something of a cross-section of former mineworkers, it cannot be claimed that they are a representative sample, or that their views and opinions are necessarily typical of all ex-miners. Neither is the fact that three participants went to university after being made redundant the norm among former mineworkers – although was such a trajectory was not unusual either.

Before the project commenced, ethical approval was granted by the School of Education Research Integrity and Ethics Committee at the University of Huddersfield. Participants were then accessed via personal and professional contacts, drawing on connections from previous research and localised knowledge from two former mining towns in the north of England. Thereafter, a ‘snowball’ method was used to recruit further participants with an initial core of former miners introducing others to the project – although care was taken to ensure that those who took part reflected something of the diversity of the British coal industry and the different roles in which men could be employed. Participants’ names and the identities of individuals, institutions and places have been changed to aid anonymity and ameliorate any ethical issues that may have arisen from the research. Interviews took place in local pubs and clubs or in participants’ homes to encourage conversation to flow in an open, relaxed manner. Generally, interviews lasted about an hour, although certain participants were interviewed more than once as they remembered particular events or experiences sometime after first being interviewed – as is the norm in narrative research. Those who took part were encouraged to engage in an honest, reflective dialogue about their experiences of education and work, both as young men making their way in the world and as mature adults looking back at their lives over time. The data presented in the next section of the paper gradually arose from conversation in a ‘natural’ inductive fashion (see Merrill and West 2009).

Our participants worked in various roles at different levels of seniority in the coal industry but eventually all of them went on to professional, managerial, or creative employment at some point during their working lives. It may therefore be fair to suggest that their views and opinions are shaped, to some extent, by their ultimately positive experiences of post-compulsory education and to recognise that other former miners may have a different story to tell. It is therefore necessary to note that individual perceptions are socially constructed, at least to some degree, and to acknowledge that historical events can be interpreted in a variety of ways by different individuals depending on their different backgrounds and their personal views, opinions, and identities (Batty 2009). It is also fair to say that research which relies on memories going back several decades may also be distorted simply due to the passage of time – and, in some cases, the data presented in this paper draws on recollections of experiences which occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. They nevertheless help us think critically about the relationship between education, work, and social change especially in post-industrial communities – particularly in relation to dominant discourses about the supposed relationship between education and social mobility.

Narrative research nevertheless allows us to ‘get close’ to individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and can provide meaningful and original insights into historical incidents or events. It can reveal how personal experiences and individual journeys are not merely isolated occurrences but connected, to some degree, with broader social and economic phenomena (see Wright Mills 1959). Oral history is also a particularly useful method for exploring the views and opinions of individuals or groups whose voices may otherwise be marginalised, overlooked, hidden, or rejected (Merrill and West 2009; Roberts 2002). This is a valuable point because, whilst much has been said and written about coalminers and coalmining communities, it is less usual in academic circles to hear from those who were employed in the industry. It is moreover especially rare to read about colliers’ experiences of education and training – and it is likely to become even more so as former coalminers leave the labour market, retire from public life, or pass away. Either way, oral history can perhaps be best regarded as a way of uncovering narratives of the past rather than a method of obtaining ‘hard’ factual knowledge or discovering a clear, definitive truth. Then again, all knowledge, as Batty (2009) argues, is contested territory to some extent. What is clear, however, is that the data presented in this paper come from a variety of former mineworkers, all of whom undertook significant courses of post-compulsory education whilst employed as coalminers or after being made redundant from the coal industry. Their studies included specialist mining certificates, nationally recognised technical qualifications, and university degrees in both vocational and more ‘abstract’ academic subjects – the latter after leaving the coal industry.

Findings

Jack’s story

Jack grew up in a pit village in the North-East of England in the 1930s where his father was a coalface worker and trade unionist. Young Jack passed the 11-plus examination and then went to the local grammar school where he got good O-Levels and A-Levels¹ before going to university, supported by a scholarship from the National Coal Board (NCB). Superficially at least, his story is an example of the positive relationship between education and social mobility inasmuch as it basically entails a linear journey from Jack being a ‘bright’ working-class pupil who did well in education before rising to a senior position in industry. There are, however, numerous complexities which lurk beneath the surface. Initially, Jack planned to read medicine at university, which delighted his parents. But his ideas changed following a school trip to Ashbury Colliery which was then one of Europe’s largest and most advanced coal mines:

To be honest, I can’t remember why we went. It may have been [a field trip] for the geography students and us science students filled the coach. I didn’t think it was a careers’ visit, although at the time the NCB was heavily into marketing jobs … Whatever the reason, the opportunity to go underground in one of the most up-to-date collieries … would be life-changing for me.

Jack talked about the impact of the trip and how it led to him abandoning the idea of medicine and deciding to pursue a career in the coal industry instead:

While on the visit, we … talked to both managers and miners about working in the coal industry. It was the miners who had most charisma and I for one was really impressed with the job opportunities … It was … a job for life with the opportunity for promotion, and management salaries were excellent.

He was particularly impressed with the extensive opportunities for education and training, especially as they would allow him to continue to live and study near home:

I worked it out it would not be a financial burden to my parents … taking a medical degree was expensive with many additional costs over and above the local authority’s funding of fees and accommodation… Some of the miners I met had done engineering degrees at Norheart² University and not only did the NCB fund their degrees, but they also earned a good wage while completing them. Of course … you had to go to a local university as you had to work between lectures. I wasn’t bothered about going away anyway … mixing with posh people.

It is, however, fair to say that Jack’s change of heart caused some consternation at home:

[D]ad was furious … mum was upset because she had seen how hard he [Jack’s father] had worked in the pits for not a great deal of money. It took them some time to come round. I think they were proud of me going to grammar school and becoming a doctor. It was a status thing which I quite understood.

Jack nevertheless applied to work for the NCB and was taken on by the Coal Board following his A-levels. After completing the initial mining certificate, the NCB paid for Jack to study for an engineering degree at Norheart University² which he undertook as a ‘sandwich’³ course whilst employed on a management trainee scheme. Jack passed his degree and, over time, worked his way up the career ladder in the coal industry:

I really did enjoy the work and got promoted to junior management posts. However, I realised … if I wanted to apply for higher management posts, I would have to do so across all the coalfields.

Eventually Jack relocated to the central coalfield⁴ where he became an Area Manager, a very senior post within the industry. Again, Jack’s parents had mixed emotions about his career path:

My dad … was a union man. When I did go into top office [management] he was proud of me and my mum too. By then I had left home and married so he played down the management aspect with his work colleagues. I knew they had got over their disappointment that I hadn’t gone into medicine when they came to my graduation and had photos of me in my fancy hat and gown.

There are several notable points associated with Jack’s story, perhaps the most striking being that working in the coal industry clearly appealed to an ambitious grammar school pupil as a viable alternative to medicine. Medicine has, in the UK, always been a prestigious occupation but it has also largely been the preserve of the socially privileged and the time and cost associated with training for the profession has always acted as a barrier to widening participation (BMA 2023). More generally, a university education has, in England especially, traditionally been associated with the public-school model of ‘going away’ to university linked, in turn, to the historic domination of higher education by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (Willetts 2017). It has, however, long been recognised that the customs, practices, and expectations associated with such arrangements disadvantage working-class students vis-à-vis their more privileged peers, not only in terms of cost but also in relation to range of more qualitative social and cultural experiences (Bathmaker, Ingram, and Waller 2013; Crozier et al. 2008; Reay 2021). Jack obviously didn’t relish the prospect of ‘mixing with posh people’ at university whereas it is evident that having paid employment whilst studying near home appealed to him.

Rob’s story

Rob left school in the 1960s aged sixteen and went to work at a colliery close to where he grew up in the North-West of England. Like all coal workers, Rob completed the initial certificate in mining before becoming a trainee mining surveyor, a role which entailed a structured programme of workplace learning alongside formal study at a nearby college of further education⁵ (FE). Rob attended college on a ‘day-release’ basis whilst working at Contmul Colliery near his family home. The course entailed field trips, workshop activities, and classroom-based learning, although Rob spoke particularly fondly about field trips to Crulper Gorge near his hometown, Bartworth, and the fact that he learnt about ‘geology … and surveying both above and below ground’.

The visits were great because we were in the fresh air … and we were getting paid for it! The Gorge was ideal for pit surveying. It’s a glacial valley which allowed geological mapping with several old pits which could be accessed and one working mine, Contmul Pit was small with small coal seams.

Rob was required to complete formal written examinations and a series of workplace assessments to pass the Ordinary National and Higher National Certificate (HNC)⁶ programmes on which he was enrolled. Rob said that many of the lecturers who taught him at college had been mining surveyors before going into teaching and explained how such a move which could provide former miners – and those from other industries – with a second career. ‘Coming off the tools’ to teach in FE also generally led to better pay and conditions and provided access to respectable ‘white-collar work’ for experienced technicians and craftsmen from across various branches of industry and commerce (Gleeson and Mardle 1980). Things have, however, changed considerably over time. FE is now focused mainly on preparing young people for service sector occupations; staff pay and conditions are now far less generous; and FE colleges are much more taxing places to work than when Rob was a day-release student (Orr 2020).

Contmul Colliery closed in the late 1970s, but Rob decided to transfer to Oldcroft Colliery some thirty miles away rather than take redundancy. Eventually though, it became clear that coal was in terminal decline and Rob left the industry when Oldcroft shut in the early 1990s. He then decided to pursue other opportunities and was pleased to land a job as a surveyor in the construction industry:

I assumed that there would be a lot of competition as the local pits were closing so I was surprised that my first application resulted in me getting a surveying post at a national company based in Monkharle.

Evidently, qualifications and experience gained with the NCB were highly valued in other industries:

[E]mployers preferred experienced mining surveyors as they had worked underground in dangerous and difficult conditions which were damp, wet, busy, and unstable. Mining surveyors could work in … any environment.

Rob stayed in the construction industry and worked for several different companies before setting up his own building firm, which he was running at the time of his interview. Rob described how ‘When I started up on my own, I employed ex-mining surveyors and others who had worked in the pits as they had skills and expertise’. He also said that British miners were highly valued overseas, and that it was not unusual for technical and managerial staff to be recruited to work in Africa, Australia, and other parts of the world where mining continued to be a major employer after the closure of the industry in the UK.

Sam’s story

Sam’s educational trajectory was rather different to either Jack’s or Rob’s story. At school, Sam showed little commitment to learning, describing himself as a ‘lazy’ pupil. Nor did he take much advantage of education and training when he was employed as a coalface worker at a colliery near where he grew up. Sam described himself as ‘happier working with his hands than his head’ and explained that he ‘much preferred operating machinery to listening to lecturers’. Sam admitted that he ‘didn’t take the opportunities to better myself with qualifications and put certificates on the wall’, although he also stressed that he was ’a hard worker’ when he was employed as a coal miner. Everything changed, however, when the pit closed, and Sam was made redundant. He then decided to throw his energies into his hobby, ornithology:

When Thatcher made me redundant, I banked my redundancy [pay] and decided then to go to university. I was mature and wanted to show my two sons that I was actually clever. I used the money … to study ornithology at Brudley University, which I love.

Later, ornithology became Sam’s job:

I became a self-employed consultant for both English Heritage and more recently HS2⁷ to count bird species and identify likely impact on bird life. I get paid for walking in the hills and valleys across the country.

Clearly, Sam was not academically inclined at school or as a young man, but there are two observations to make about his story. The first is that, in some ways, it is understandable that many miners did not pursue formal education and training after gaining their basic mining qualifications. Coalmining offered secure employment and became relatively well paid after the miners’ strikes of the 1970s. Early labour market entry combined with local norms and expectations also meant that finishing school and going to work was normally followed in rapid succession by leaving home, getting married, and starting a family (Simmons, Thompson, and Russell 2014). There was nevertheless a strong tradition of informal learning in many former coalmining communities. The NCB and the NUM would support a range of social and cultural activities, including choirs, brass bands, reading and poetry circles, as well as more formal education and training. Perhaps understandably, open-air activities such as angling, and horticulture were popular too. In Sam’s case, it was ornithology which provided an antidote to working underground – and eventually a second career.

Pete and Larry’s story

Pete and Larry were long-term friends who were born in the 1960s and went to work at their local pit in the central coalfield immediately after finishing school in the late 1970s. Eventually though, the colliery shut and both men were made redundant – although the Coal Board supported them to return to education. Pete explained how:

[T]he NCB sent information that it would fund degrees for successful applicants and there was no pressure to complete mining qualifications as everyone knew the coal industry was coming to end … We grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

Pete and Larry went on to do English degrees at Sparkwell University⁸ before taking qualifications in librarianship and then pursuing careers in further education. Pete explained how: ‘[W]e were lucky as we both got jobs locally and didn’t need to move our families … We taught English and became librarians, jobs we are still doing’. The pair also provided some significant insights into the historical role of education in coalmining communities more generally. Larry argued that:

Well-qualified miners had been role models for their children and grandchildren to work hard at school and college so they could get qualifications to set them up for life … No-one picked up just how the NCB and NUM had supported advanced qualifications in mining.

Tellingly, Pete said:

[T]he public think that the first generation of graduates are quite recent … but this is not true. The first working-class graduates came from mining communities during the 1960s … not more recently as is often portrayed in the media.

Both men talked about what had been lost with the demise of the coal industry. Larry described how: ‘Many [young men especially] lost interest in life, getting in trouble, committing crimes and drug taking … It was and is so sad’. Pete went on to explain how a lack of viable employment locally meant young people now often had to leave the area to thrive and prosper:

Those who have gone on to college and still have not really had careers unless they left the area in search of good jobs. Their own families are in the same situation.

Such an observation contrasts sharply with how our participants were all, in different ways, able to make considerable progress in education and employment whilst remaining near home and, even though Jack and Rob eventually moved to other parts of the country, they remained part of working-class communities. Whilst we recognise that life chances are not totally shaped or determined by structural forces, it is fair to say that many opportunities – especially for young men – were severely attenuated with the demise of the coal industry. The words of Pete and Larry above provide some vivid insights above into the draining effects of this loss and how, in many cases, young people may now have to leave the former coalfields in order to achieve a degree of social mobility.

Discussion

Nowadays education is often presented as a mechanism through which to promote the most able and talented sections of working-class youth into professional employment which will, it is assumed, then enable them to acquire the trappings and habits of the higher orders. But, whilst it can play a significant role, research suggests that labour market opportunities are at least as important as education in determining social mobility (Eyles, Elliot Major, and Machin 2022). On the other hand, our data also suggest that individual choice and agency have an important role to play too. In each instance, our participants were able to navigate the vicissitudes of redundancy and shape new futures – and it is evident that their positive engagement with post-compulsory education was an important facet of this. It is, however, important to note that the NCB provided them with a foundation on which to build, even if this was only through providing funding to retrain after leaving the coal industry. It is therefore fair to say that a substantial degree of interplay between structure and agency is evident in each of their stories. In contrast, the demise of the coal industry has attenuated many opportunities for young people living in former coalfield communities today, especially if they are not able or prepared to leave their immediate surroundings. Whilst there has been some growth in professional and managerial work, there has also been a substantial increase in low-pay, low-skill work, especially in de-industrialised locales such as the former coalfields (Beatty, Fothergill, and Gore 2019). There has moreover been a considerable reduction in the number of intermediate level occupations since our participants were young men, especially in terms of craft and technical level jobs. On one hand, such work provided gainful employment in and of itself, but could also lead to meaningful career progression for those seeking to climb into more senior roles. Such processes were especially evident across the expanding public sector and the nationalised industries such as steel, rail, and coal and played a central role driving the great rise in social mobility which took place during the three decades after the end of World War Two (Thompson and Simmons 2013).

It is, however, also necessary to explain that the coal industry was something of a special case to fully appreciate our participants’ stories. On one hand, exhausted pits and large-scale redundancies, especially in Scotland, Wales and the North-East of England, meant the number of miners shrunk from almost 700,000 in 1950 to under 300,000 in 1970 (Our World in Data 2023). But the fact that coal seams were deeper and more difficult to access also meant that more advanced technology was required to mine coal in Yorkshire and the Midlands (Beynon and Hudson 2021). This, in tandem with increased competition from alternative energy sources such as gas and oil, meant the NCB had to increase investment in education and training to remain competitive. There was, in other words, heightened demand for skilled labour in those mines which continued to exist (Walker 2022). Conversely, the nature of the labour market which now characterises Britain’s former coalfields means there is less incentive for employers to invest in skills – which, in turn, goes some way towards explaining the relatively low levels of participation in education and training in such communities. It may also help us to understand why young people are twice as likely to move away from the former coalfields than is the case elsewhere (Coalfields Regeneration Trust 2023).

It is also important to recognise the role and function of other institutions related to coal: trade unions, the Miners’ Welfare Fund (MWF), miners’ welfare institutes, and voluntary organisations such as the Workers’ Educational Association were all active learning providers in coalfield communities. Whilst the NUM was perhaps most well-known for industrial muscle, it was also a considerable provider of education and training and often sponsored miners to take external courses of further and higher education. The NUM also helped establish Northern College as a residential college to provide education and training for education for trade unionists, voluntary and community groups, and adults without formal qualifications (H. Jackson 2021). NACODS (the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers) also ran numerous training programmes for its members, including colliery managers, pit deputies, and other aspirant workers. The Miners’ Welfare Fund spent extensively on improving working conditions, education, and welfare for mineworkers – including facilities for education, sport, and other forms of recreation; research into mines safety; and scholarships for aspiring college and university students from mining families (Miners’ Welfare Committee and Commission 1952). It also provided substantial funding to help technical colleges provide accommodation and equipment for mining education and other forms of FE (Walker 2022). Miners’ institutes, financed in part by the MWF, often had reading rooms and libraries intended to promote social and political awareness. They also provided informal learning in terms of sport and leisure (angling, bowls, cricket, football, rugby); music (brass bands, choirs); and creative activities (literature, painting, poetry, and other classes). Much of this was lost with the demise of the coal industry.

We do, however, need to avoid smokestack nostalgia (see Cowie and Heathcott 2003). Coalmining communities have often been described as friendly and close-knit, and coalminers frequently presented as the ultimate proletarians, but Britain’s former coalfields were marked by difference as well as similarity. On one hand, different individuals within a particular community could have substantially different orientations to education and work. But different coalfield communities were more or less politically radical or conservative and not all were as reliant on coal as others in terms of income or identity (Gilbert 1991). It is nevertheless fair to say that many such places could be parochial and inward looking, and discrimination in terms, for example, of gender, race, and sexuality was often part and parcel of daily life in Britain’s former coalfield communities (Simmons, Thompson, and Russell 2014).

Coalmining was perhaps the most macho of all industries and our research, we acknowledge, focuses solely on the experiences of men. We make no apologies for this, although it is necessary to recognise that many women did work in the coal industry, even though they were not employed as colliers per se – at least not within living memory. The 1842 Coal Mines Act prevented all females from working underground, although ‘pit-brow girls’ continued to be employed loading and unloading coal for more than a hundred years thereafter. Thousands of women were, however, employed by the Coal Board to work in personnel, sales, marketing, and other support roles dealing with pay and pensions, finance and purchasing, health and safety, and various other functions. Many of them undertook major programmes of education and training, often attending colleges and polytechnics on day release or block release from their place of work (Simmons and Simpson 2022, 250–251). This is something Larry highlighted when he spoke to us:

Secretaries in the pit offices were funded to complete secretarial courses through the Royal Society of Arts and national diplomas such as Pitman shorthand, and of course typing. When the pits closed, they went to work for other businesses and some I know taught office skills in local colleges. I remember looking through the classroom windows watching them type to music!

Research on this topic is work waiting to be done.

Conclusion

Neoliberal discourses about education and employment blame patterns of inequality and (under)achievement largely on a lack of ambition, a poverty of aspiration, and various individual, familial, or localised deficits (McInch 2022). Such notions are, in turn, linked to numerous forms of exhortation aimed at working-class youth, teachers and others charged with inculcating them with the skills and abilities deemed necessary to improve their lot in life. There are various reasons for this, not least that advancing social mobility as a goal draws attention away from questions about the redistribution of wealth, fairness, and equality. Effectively, social progress becomes a Pygmalion style competition whereby working-class youth battle to escape their origins and rise to a better, brighter future. In such a scenario, education effectively becomes a mechanism through which selected individuals are ‘creamed off’ into the ranks of the middle and upper classes. At the same time, however, the possibility of downward mobility is rarely mentioned. This is a serious omission as employers are able to be more and more selective, especially at the top end of the labour market where they are able to demand academic excellence alongside a CV embellished with multiple achievements and experiences in terms, for example, of sporting excellence, travel, music, or voluntary work – all which advantages those from more privileged backgrounds (Ainley 2016). Meanwhile, the ‘hollowing out’ of the labour market in terms of intermediate and technical occupations means the gap between high-skill and low-skill employment has widened over time, and the ‘rungs’ on the ladder of social mobility are now fewer and more widely spaced. Whilst never easy or straightforward, progress from the shop floor into professional or managerial roles therefore becomes increasingly difficult (Thompson and Simmons 2013).

Claims about the increasing importance of skills, creativity, and innovation ring particularly hollow in the former coalfields where employment is now largely characterised by insecure, low-pay work in warehouses, call centres, retail, distribution, and social care where most jobs entail routine, fragmented, low-skill tasks with little worker discretion or autonomy (Beatty, Fothergill, and Gore 2019). The Guardian’s (2020) expose of working conditions at the Sports Direct warehouse in Shirebrook near Mansfield provided some sobering insights into the nature of employment in the former coalfields today – and, perhaps understandably, many young people and adults are reluctant to labour under such circumstances. This does not, however, necessarily mean they are lazy, feckless or lack motivation and ambition. Similarly, in terms of education, young men are, in the main, neither ‘heroes nor zeroes’ (Francis 2006). Much research in post-industrial locales suggests that most young men in fact aspire to traditional forms of masculine employment and subscribe to fairly ‘mainstream’ conceptions of family, consumption, and leisure (Noble 2009; Stahl 2015, 2017). In other words, their motivation and ambitions are not dissimilar to those of our participants in their youth – although the nature of the labour market has changed radically since the men who took part in our research entered the world of work. Consequently, many of the opportunities for limited upward mobility which previously existed for young men within the former coalfields have been extinguished. Whilst this does not mean that all ambition is simply crushed by structural forces, it does suggest that alternative courses of action may become more attractive for those who wish to avoid the more pernicious effects of de-industrialisation on working-class communities, both in terms of employment and life chances more broadly. This, on one hand, may require young people to leave the former coalfields, especially to peruse professional employment (Beatty, Fothergill, and Gore 2019; Coalfields Regeneration Trust 2023). For those who remain, agency and choice are bounded by extant opportunities, especially for young men unable or unwilling to adapt to the rigours of service sector employment which now characterise post-industrial Britain (Nayak 2006; Simmons, Connelly, and Thompson 2020).

Research suggests that repeated negative experiences of education and work can, over time, produce labour market withdrawal – which can, in turn, lead some young people to substitute legitimate but ultimately unproductive means with alternative markers of success and prestige, some of which may be deemed illicit or unacceptable to mainstream norms and expectations (Simmons, Connelly, and Thompson 2020). This, we argue, does not necessarily mean that young men in de-industrialised locales such as the former coalfields are inherently negative to education and employment. The data we present in this paper suggest that young people’s pathways and trajectories are the product of individual choices made according to the options available to them. The boundaries within which such decisions are made have, however, narrowed considerably over time for young men in Britain’s former coalfield communities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no funding for the research upon which this paper is based.

Notes

1. In England, grammar schools were intended for children who would go into white collar or professional occupations. They were incrementally abolished from the 1960s onwards, although grammar schools still exist in certain parts of the country. The 11-plus was the examination pupils needed to pass to attend a grammar school. O-levels were Level 2 qualifications which were replaced by GCSEs in the late-1980s; A-levels still exist and have, since being introduced in the 1950s, been regarded as the ‘gold standard’ for university entry.

2. Norheart University is a prestigious institution now part of the Russell Group, a self-appointed interest group consisting of the most selective research-intensive universities in the UK.

3. Sandwich courses entailed blocks of attendance at a university or college sandwiched between periods of paid employment in industry or commerce. They were quite popular during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

4. Mining remained a significant if diminishing industry in the central coalfield (Yorkshire and the English Midlands) well after the closure of the rest of the industry, the last remaining collieries finally shutting in 2015.

5. FE colleges provide a diverse range of learning opportunities in adults and young people over the minimum school-leaving age of 16. This includes academic courses, special needs education, and learning for leisure and pleasure but their main raison d’ etre has always been vocational and work-related education and training.

6. Higher National Certificates are Level 4 work-related courses of higher education which have now been largely replaced by foundation degrees in England. Ordinary National Certificates were Level 3 programmes.

7. HS2 is a high-speed railway project originally intended to connect London with other major cities in the Midlands and the North of England. The ‘northern leg’ of the project was recently abandoned.

8. Sparkwell University is, like Norheart University, a member of the Russell Group.