Mining Review: Dust – Rehabilitation (1948)
The third in a three-part series on the health hazards of dust, this episode investigate ways to help with miners who’ve already developed pneumoconiosis, or dust disease.
As the disease is a chronic condition, the only viable solutions are compensation and retraining, so the film details some of the schemes which enable trained miners to undertake work away from the industrial environment, either in nearby specialist factories or their own homes. This film from Mining Review’s first season emphasises the need for community and social support for those who caused themselves irreparable harm in trying to meet Britain’s then insatiable appetite for coal. Mining Review is presented in a magazine format consisting of several stories. Dust is the second featured story (beginning around 01:50), with the other stories concerning the reopening of a closed pit, the post-war provision of coal to Denmark and a pigeon-racing miner. This government film is a public record, preserved and presented by the BFI National Archive on behalf of The National Archives, home to more than 1,000 years of British history.
Directors: Douglas Lyne and Leslie Shepard
Duration: 10 minutes
Suggested credit: Mining Review 1st Year No. 11: Dust – Rehabilitation (1948) © The British Film Institute