I’m not sure if you’re allowed in without a booking for one of the rides, but I thought I’d chance my arm – you don’t get if you don’t ask. The lovely girl on the desk was slightly perplexed by my request but agreed that I could go in as long as I stayed in the public areas. That was fine by me so in I went. As I was taking a few snaps, the site manager came over and introduced himself and I told him what I was doing and why. After a good ten minutes, after agreeing to run a favour for home at my next port of call, and buoyed by my run of luck so far, I asked if I could go behind into a restricted area to get a clear shot of the headstocks. He agreed so in I went and got a much better photograph than I’d planned.

The story of Tower is a remarkable one, and one that’s been well told. One of many collieries in the area, it was declared uneconomic by the NCB in 1993, despite having many years of coal reserves left. The miners decided that this was unacceptable and grouped together to buy it and run it themselves. They each contributed £8000 to put together a £2 million deposit to take over the colliery, and successfully ran it until 2008 when it finally closed. By then it was the last deep coal mine in Wales (yes, I know that coal was brought up via the drift mine and that the shaft at Tower was used by men and materials , I’m going off what has been popularly reported in the press, etc.).