Where did the miners go?

I was back in Mansfield a few weeks ago visiting my father's side of the family and over lunch talk turned to the pits and how their closures still affect some communities today. My family has a long history of mining, my grandfather was the last in a long line of them and he worked Welbeck Colliery until an accident led to his retirement. 25 years ago mining was a "cause" championed by every trade unionist, militant student and card carrying member of the Labour Party. At that point, the National Coal Board employed 191,000 mineworkers at 170 collieries. In 1999 however, these figures had dwindled to 10,000 working in 15 privately owned pits. There is no official record of what happened to the tens of thousands of miners forced into unemployment however a study by the Coalfield Communities Campaign made in the mid-nineties painted a pretty grim picture. Of 900 miners surveyed, more than 50% were out of work more than a year after the pit and 46% were unemployed. Only 6%% were in training or education. More worrying was that 30% of respondents were claiming sickness benefits. While the study is over 10 years old, I suspect the figures today would not offer any additional comfort. I suspect that many of the miners will now be in their retirement or edging near to it. What concerns me is the likelihood that many of these men if they have not found regular and substantial employment after the closures or if they have been surviving on sickness benefits for a decade then they will now be in a particularly vulnerable financial position. While EU funds have been used in regenerative projects such as the visitor and education centre at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire and the Technology Training and Business Centre as Basford Hall College Nottinghamshire, I suspect more can be done, and we need to listen carefully to community leaders for their guidance on where these funds are needed most and how we can ensure the miners and their communities are looked after. I would be very interested to hear if anyone has a regeneration initiative for their area and how best they think this could be funded.