In Black & White

<p><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The 100 year life of a unique coalfield.</strong></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>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.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>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.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>But like any immigrants they were strangers in an established community of folk who lived off the land rather than beneath it.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>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.</span></p><p><br></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Michael Irwin Professor of English at the University of Kent writes:</strong></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>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. </span><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>IN BLACK & WHITE</strong><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> 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.</span></p><p><br></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Nick Rennison Daily Mail January 2020</strong></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)></span><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>IN BLACK & WHITE</strong><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> is a well-written intriguing slice of social history .......a worthy obituary to a now-vanished Industry.</span></p>