Lynk 'lights out' protest plea

ROY LYNK, leader of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, called last night for a nationwide blackout in protest at the pit closures.

Mr Lynk, who was spending the third night of a one-man sit-in 1,200 ft below ground at the Silverhill pit in Nottinghamshire, wants people to switch off their lights at nine o'clock tonight to register support for the miners. He said the idea came from an elderly woman who had telephoned him to ask how best she could demonstrate her support.

'I am asking everybody in the country to demonstrate their opposition to the closure programme by switching off their electricity for two or five minutes in a demonstration of public solidarity,' Mr Lynk said.

The Grimethorpe Colliery Band won the national brass band championships at the Royal Albert Hall, London, yesterday. Thousands of brass band lovers erupted into applause and whistles of delight as the judges announced that the 75-year-old band from the threatened colliery had beaten 18 rivals with a near perfect performance, scoring 99 out of 100.

The music for the competition, Philip Willoughby's The New Jerusalem, was an apt choice, ranging from mournful solo laments to brass crescendos of a call to arms.

The composer said that the music, composed against a background of the collapse of east European dictatorships, represented 'a sure triumph of the human spirit over oppression, a sense of liberty and resurrection drawn out of sorrow and pain'.