The end of UK deep coal mining

Today marked the end of deep coal mining in the UK, as the final shift ended at the country's only remaining deep mine at Kellingley in North Yorkshire. (See BBC news here.) A sad day for the mining industry.

I've no direct connection with coal mining, or with Kellingley, but I'm old enough to remember there being lots of deep coal mines in northeast England (hence the old expression about "Carrying coals to Newcastle"...I was fascinated to find from the Wikipedia article on this that Newcastle Australia is now the biggest exporter of coal in the modern world!!).

We came across this little wood sculpture on a seat in Chopwell Woods, not far from Newcastle, where we went today for a walk and to buy our Christmas tree. It seemed to make an appropriate blip.

It's best viewed large.

(PS Thanks to everyone who had a guess as to the origin of the distorted picture I blipped yesterday to commemorate the Star Wars film premiere. Some guesses came pretty close, but no-one got it completely right - it was a heat sink on a computer motherboard. I've now added an extra on yesterday's blip showing the original photo.)