Forest of Dean Free Miners

Described as the 'coal industry's last bastion of free enterprise', the Forest of Dean's free miners operate outside the National Coal Board and make a living from local coal.

There were Celts mining in the Forest of Dean even before the Romans, and when Lionel Hampden visited in 1964 for Midland Montage, not much appeared to have changed! He talks to local miner Bert Hinton about the ancient rights that allow Forest of Dean men to become Free Miners and make a living from primitive drift mines as they hack out the coal and bringing it to the surface by hand.