An impressive pressing all right!

HISTORY GROUP ANNUAL JOURNAL: Once again the Abersychan and Garndiffaith Local History Group have produced a wonderful journal, absolutely packed with articles about the past days of the district. In the foreword, Ken Clark, their chairman, sets out the difficulties of producing a magazine like this while trying to keep the price within reason.

He points out that if they increase the cost, which they think they will have to do, they really should include more contributions, but if they do that they would have to raise the price even further.

Ken says that they only produce 300 copies per edition, because it would be difficult To sell more copies in such a localised area.

The group holds monthly meetings, which attract and average of 35 members. Visiting speakers often comment how pleasing it is to have so many, as even some groups do not have such a large audience.

The articles in the journal cover a wide range of historical interests, including All Mod Cons, a story of her childhood, by Jean Parry; Garndiffaith in the Twenties and Thirties, by Rachel Mounsey; Horses in Coal Mines, Albert Clark; Little Moscow and Other Memories, Bernard Edwards and Abersychan Man In Confederate Army in the American Civil War. There is also an unusual item called the Alaskan Letters, by Ken Clark.

It is a snip at £3 and with so few copies printed it could well become a treasured item in years to come.

GOING UNDERGROUND: A very well written booklet, GLO Coal A History of the NatioNal Coal Board, produced for Big Pit, Blaenavon, which is also described as the National Coal Museum, celebrates the 60th anniversary of the setting up of the National Coal Board on Vesting Day, January 1, 1947.

It is certainly a valuable historical document, as all the contributions have been made by the ex-miners themselves and, of course, their numbers are decreasing by the day.

The booklet describes the dismal history of the coalmining industry between the wars with lots of closures of collieries, cutbacks in wages and the lack of much-needed investment by the hated coal owners.

The miners believed that Nationalisation would put an end to these mass pit closures, produce safer and better working conditions and give them a greater say in the running of their industry.

However, the men soon became disillusioned as mines continued to be closed, and, despite efforts to improve safety, accidents and disasters still occurred.

However, in the foreword written by Ceri Thompson, the curator of Big Pit, he wonders what would have happened to the coal industry if it had remained in private hands.

Would the coal owners have invested so heavily in improving safety and training and could they have poured the many millions of pounds into new collieries and new technology that the NCB did?

Above all, would the industry have survived into the last decades of the twentieth century and become one of the safest and most cost effective coal industries in the world?

I was given this booklet by a friend, Les Williams, who had it at a meeting of the Pontypool History Society.

There doesn't seem to be a purchase price on the cover, so I cannot suggest where you may buy it, but if you do see a copy, do get one, it makes such fascinating reading of the history of the most important industry that ever existed in this part of the world.

E-MAIL SCAM SCUM: There have been many cases around Pontypool where e-mail users have been encouraged to send details of £60 vouchers, being issued by Sainsbury's, to everyone sending details of the offer to ten other people.

I have just come across an official statement from Sainsbury's themselves, saying that the offer did not come from them and the address is not even a genuine Sainsbury's address. They say that is a way of capturing e-mail addresses to build up a mailing list.

Having received the details from someone I trusted completely, I tried it on several occasions but the computer kept on rejecting the Sainsbury address, which we now know was false.

It did mean that someone, somewhere had 10 more addresses from me, presumably to send unsolicited items out to.

They say that promotions such as this are generally not genuine offers, and if anyone around Pontypool has any further queries now, they should contact the Sainsbury Careline.

THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF MY LIGHTS: It was two years ago that I wrote to Torfaen County Borough Council on behalf of the Trosnant Sequence Dancing Club about the broken light outside the Torfaen People's Centre, where we hold our weekly dance.

The light had been out for some time and in the winter the mostly older people who attend the dance found it rather dangerous trying to get back to their cars in the pitch dark.

The leader of the centre had contacted the council over a longish period of time about the matter, with no result.

In due course, I received a letter from the appropriate department promising to look into my complaint. Within a short space of time the light was repaired and I wrote a letter of thanks to them.

However, I noticed for some reason or other those lights, in what is called the surgery car park, were staying on all day, whereas those in Trosnant Street went out during the hours of daylight.

I rang up, but the man from the council told me that they were carrying out a review of the street lighting in the area and needed to have them on to do it.

Looking back through some old correspondence the other day I realised that that was two years ago now, and those couple of lights had been on all day and night for all that period.

I am sure that there is something about the cost of the use of power or global warming that would suggest that it would be better if they were included in the timers that control the rest of the street lights hereabouts.

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