I do not know how I had never thought of this before, but it came up in an exchange with old friends last night.
In 1974, after two miners' strikes in two years, Tyne and Wear was created at least in part in order to weaken the miners, by cutting a part of the Northumberland coalfield out of Northumberland, and by cutting great chunks of the Durham coalfield out of County Durham.
The new Metropolitan Boroughs of Gateshead and Sunderland were far larger than the former County Boroughs of the same name had been. And it was quite obvious why.
No comments:
Post a Comment