Eventually, some 150 illegal mining and quarrying companies in the area were shut down.

ECONOMIST: Rural activism

Manufacturing, which is one of the components of the index of production along with mining and quarrying, gas and electricity, and water and sewerage, fell 0.3% compared with the previous month.

BBC: Man in a factory producing tinsel

Although, by 1981, the proportion of Welsh employees working in mining and quarrying was just 3.8%, the coal industry still had a symbolic place at the heart of ideas of the Welsh nation.

BBC: Wales politics