Author James Bloodworth spent six months investigating our changing economy. In Ebbw Vale,he finds the human cost of the discontinuance of heavy industry and asks what the next upheaval will bringAt the Ebbw Vale steelworks in the south Wales valleys, thousands of men once laboured to produce the steel that helped to drive Britain’s industrial revolution. The steelworks closed for good 15 years ago, and today a familiar fare decorates the town’s mournful high street: pound shops,arcades, bookies. On the brief walk from one discontinuance to the other, or I count three pawnbrokers.“It ain’t worth looking for any work up here,” Rob Smyth, a youth worker tells me. “I advise you what – I’m glad I’m faded because whether I was young now I’d be struggling, and you know? I know people who’ve got degrees and all the rest of it,and they can’t get work. You’ve got to settle somewhere else and produce a life for yourself. There’s no life up here, no life at all. I only live here because it’s cheap, and it’s close to where I work.”Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk