Overview

"The 100 year life of a unique coalfield. The County of Kent, with its hopgardens, oasthouses and orchards, is known around the world as the Garden of England. In the 1920s, plans were drawn up to transform it into a new, industrial Black Country of coalmines and ironworks. Men, starved of work during The Depression, flocked to Kent, seeking jobs in the 18 new collieries promised by Neville Chamberlain, who would soon become Britain's Prime Minister. Tens of thousands of men settled in Kent, with their families, and they stayed even when Britain's collieries closed in the 1980s. But, like any immigrants, they were strangers in an established community of folk who lived off the land rather than beneath it. Peter Williams tells the unique story of a century of Kent coal. It is a story of love and hate, great triumphs and crushing disappointments, team spirit and laughter, and conflict at the highest level of Government. Michael Irwin, Professor of English at the University of Kent, writes: ""Peter Williams gives a multi-faceted account of a complex, 20th century migration of coalminers across Britain. We know less about life down a mine than we do about the lives of elephants and insects. IN BLACK & WHITE puts the lives of this community on the record, before the mining industry lapses into the past like horse-drawn transport, to be similarly erased from the collective memory."" Nick Rennison, Daily Mail, January 2020 ""IN BLACK & WHITE is a well-written, intriguing slice of social history .......a worthy obituary to a now-vanished Industry""."

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9781739441708

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Peter Williams has been involved in the social and cultural life of East Kent for some 50 years from the revival of the Canterbury International Arts Festival, which he chaired for 21 years, to the creation of the new Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. He is a Kent Ambassador. A career in newspapers and television with ITV and the BBC, and as an independent production company, has involved him in many of the worlds milestone events over the years. Simultaneously, he has been creatively involved in major charitable and environmental initiatives in Kent, which has been his home for the past 50 years. He was awarded the MBE for services to the arts and television in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2007.

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