The Pit Closures: Defiant Lynk ends Silverhill protest

ROY LYNK, his face as black as an unworked coal-mine, came upstairs, as he put it yesterday, not so much to see the light but to end his week-long underground protest and challenge the Government to prove its claims about uneconomic pits.

Mr Lynk, 60 next month and currently president of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, stage managed his arrival at the top of the pit shaft at Silverhill colliery, in Nottinghamshire. He has spent the past week 1,000ft (305m) below ground to draw attention to the miners' plight, although his opponents cynically say he has only been in hiding.

His wife, two daughters and supporters waited for Mr Lynk to emerge and then saw him disappear amidst a pushing, impatient press corps. He probably wished he could go back down the mine.

But he used the opportunity to hold court, attacking the Government, Michael Heseltine and British Coal. He challenged Mr Heseltine to prove the 'irrefutable' case he had been making against the miners. Mr Lynk also gave a faint hint that he might not after all resign as UDM president and that he might be able to work alongside the NUM during the present troubles.

But fresh air did not persuade him to go too far down the NUM roadway. The UDM broke away from the traditional miners' union and represents about a third of British miners. Crucially, as far as the NUM is concerned, UDM members worked through the 1984-85 dispute.

As far as the Government's review was concerned, he did not want the same people who had decided to close the 31 pits to now run the inquiry. He said: 'It's just like going to a judge who has threatened to hang you and say please let me off.

'I want some fresh minds up there who are unbiased and who will listen to the case for British coal and for this British economy, because somebody is making a right bloody mess of it.'

He said he had been 'fed up to the teeth' when he went down the mine, but felt he had to make a gesture. He said he had managed to highlight the fact that British Coal was prepared to spend pounds 6m in keeping Silverhill open but that they would not be turning any coal during the three month moratorium. 'That to me is the economics of a madhouse. This pit should be allowed to turn coal along with all the others. If they don't want it then give it away to the old-age pensioners.'

Asked if he had had any black moments during his week he said the first time he had stepped into the cage to go underground had been one. He had been sleeping on a makeshift bed in a cabin. The one essential item he had with him was a mobile phone, although fortunately most of the calls had been in-coming. None it seems from Michael Heseltine.

But to the men at Silverhill his sit-in will certainly not save their pit. One UDM member, David Holmes, 47, who has spent 26 years in the coal industry, said he had turned up to 'pat Lynk on the back'. He said: 'Somebody has to do something. The morality of what they are trying to do is wrong. They should offer us the chance of working the pits until they are exhausted of coal.

'I'm looking at retirement and my pension at 47. I have not spent a penny over these last months. I've been scared of doing that unless I can't pay my mortgage. This Government has no feelings at all. It's quite frightening.'

Asked if he would go underground to protest again, Mr Lynk, with considerable tongue in blackened cheek, said he had been offered a special holiday for his efforts: two weeks down the shaft next year.

(Photograph omitted)