When steelworks close

Sunset for Llanwern

Twenty years after the Consett steelworks fell silent, the Llanwern plant in Newport prepares for shutdown. Hugh Sykes visited the two towns.

One pupil in one school reflects the impact of the impending closure of Llanwern.

Kirsty Thacker is an A-level student at Hartridge Comprehensive School in Newport.

The school and the houses on the Ringland Estate were built for the families of men employed at the Llanwern steelworks.

Llanwern: just like Consett before 1980

It will hit Kirsty's family hard - her father works at Llanwern, and so do her five uncles.

More to life than money

Kirsty feels contempt for Corus, the Anglo-Dutch company which took over Llanwern less than two years ago.

"All they care about is money, money, money. They're messing with people's lives," she told me.

The head teacher at Hartridge School, Goff Davies, is angry too.

But he says his job is to persuade his students "to work even harder now. They'll need all the qualifications they can get."

Not the end of the world

Underwood is another estate built for the steelworkers. At Underwood Social Club, a former Llanwern man Roger Hinks is more philosophical: "People will adapt."

Graham Mitchell, social club steward

The club steward Graham Mitchell blames "Bolshie unions and weak Socialist government in the 1960s" for the decline of industrial Britain.

He says it was inevitable that large companies would respond to strong unions by becoming stronger themselves so that unions would become powerless.

Newport well-connected

Newport is better placed for recovery than Consett, where the steelworks closed in 1980.

Consett steelworks in the 1950s

Newport is close to the M4 motorway and the Swansea-to-London railway line. Consett is on a bare hillside 14 miles from Durham.

But Consett has not become a ghost town.

At first there were the famous Phileas Fogg crisps from the Meadomsley Road.

Now there is cutting-edge biotech and computers, and an aerospace factory where they make the main spar for the wings of the European Airbus.

New jobs

When Consett closed, about 10,000 jobs were lost directly and indirectly.

Made in Consett: Owen Macfarlane, with a 'stringer' for Airbus wings

There are now nearly 7,000 jobs in the new Consett industries.

Consett is also cleaner. The heat and the dirt and the dust have gone.

But Tommy Moore still misses the camaraderie of the steelworks, the rewarding hard work, and the beer and dominoes at the end of the shift.

The blast furnaces were just over there

It was Tommy Moore's task to close Consett down.

At 11.28 on the morning of September 12, 1980, he 'tapped' steel for the last time.

And then he had a couple of pints - 'to get rid of the bloody misery of it'.