You could see De Lange Jan from afar. With its height of 135 meters, the chimney of the Oranje Nassau Mine I effortlessly rose above almost all of Heerlen. He was a landmark. A familiar face. But even the most famous faces do not last forever. August 21, 1976 would be his last day: about a year and a half after the Oranje Nassau Mine I closed its doors, the chimney was blown up. He received a funeral procession, a requiem. Heerlen was all about saying goodbye. But Lange Jan would not go down without resistance. He fell, yes – but in the wrong direction.
The third part of When the dust settles (NTR), a Other Timesseries about the Limburg mining industry is called ‘Endj’. End. The episode broadcast on Wednesday evening focused on the closure of the mines and its consequences for Limburg. These went much further than the destruction that Tall John caused when he fell on top of a number of houses and an office building. After then minister Joop den Uyl announced the end of mining in 1965, around 75,000 people were left without work. Presenter Winfried Baijens looked back on that time with former miners, their descendants and other stakeholders.
It was already clear in the first two episodes, in which Baijens visited a Polish coal mine for the idea that it was better not to romanticize the work in those mines. The long journey down, the oppressive heat, the noise, the arduous work: it was “inhumane,” Baijens said in dismay. And dangerous it was too. Not just when you were underground; the dust that entered your lungs downstairs simply took you up with you. Ultimately, many miners would die of dust lung disease.
Pucking
And yet it is The dust settles imbued with melancholy. You hear it in the interviews with former miners, in the songs written about the mines. They defined the region for so long. The mines claimed the men, but in a sense also brought them together – as many former miners seemed to look back on that bygone time. Close bonds formed deep underground. Once at the top, you washed the dirt off each other’s backs (‘pooing’). That all of that would disappear was unthinkable – until it happened.
‘Endj’ shows what that end meant for the Limburgers who were used to life with and in the mines. In the 1970s, then governor Sjeng Kremers found “a province in complete disarray”: “At the mines you were raised with the fact that the mine takes care of everything, from cradle to grave.” Now that the mines were closed, many were left unemployed and directionless, with all the consequences that entailed.
Some of the former miners did find a new job: they started working at a newly opened DAF car factory in Born. It’s a struggle there too, but for less money. Former employee Giel Snijders remembered how “at one point a man stood next to me with a stopwatch in his hand, to see if it couldn’t be done a little faster.” Pierre de Renet was also forced to exchange the mine for DAF. “The biggest difference was the camaraderie,” he said, looking back. “You don’t get pushed around at the DAF.”
Those conversations with former miners breathe life into this series, which was clearly made with a lot of feeling. They give a face to people who toiled in the shadows for so long and gently make the complex impact of Limburg’s mining past tangible.
With former miner Ton Vankan and his wife José, Baijens visited the place where Lange Jan once fell. Only a small arch still reminded him of him. “It’s as if it all had no meaning,” said José. But of course it had. It still has that.