Nationwide | Pit Animals

This report from the magazine programme 'Nationwide' reveals that the miners' animal companions, the pony and the canary are to be phased out. Most people in 1981 would have assumed that miners no longer took canaries down the pit or used ponies to haul coal, but there were still 95 ponies working at mines in the north-east, and the canary was still being used to detect poisonous underground gases despite the appearance of a new 'electronic nose' which was shortly to replace it.

Ponies were originally introduced to replace women and children in the arduous and backbreaking task of hauling coal and machinery from surface to coalface. The ponies were usually stabled at the base of the shaft and only saw daylight during the colliery's annual holiday. Despite these harsh conditions there were strict regulations governing the treatment of the animals and a close bond often developed between man and horse where a driver typically worked with the same animal for the duration of its working life.