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The 220 workers at the largest mine left in Wales face an uncertain future this morning. The owners of the Unity mine near Neath are filing for administration. The coal industry here has shrunk to a faint shadow of its glory days, when more than a quarter of a million men worked in the pits, and what happened deep underground shaped the lives of the communities above. One of the grimmest features of that shaping is being remembered this weekend. A hundred years ago on Monday, a series of explosions ripped through the Universal Colliery at Senghenydd, near Caerphilly. 439 nine men and boys were killed, among them 162 in their twenties, and 63 teenagers. Not a family in the area was untouched. It remains the biggest mining disaster in British history. In a response which would shock in a developing country today, owners and managers paid a total of twenty four pounds in fines and compensation: £24 for 439 lives. The colliery was back in use within six weeks. The valley itself never recovered, and many decades later visitors were describing a pervading air of sadness. In the romance over close-knit communities of singers and rugby players and workmates caring for one another, it’s easy to overlook the sheer horror of conditions in which men hewed coal. How much that will mark the week of commemoration beginning today, I don’t know, but the children of a valley now green, are heirs to a story of suffering and courage which they need to hear; and I suspect the sounding of the original pit hooter will send a chill down many spines. As in other towns and villages which have lost their mines, jobs are scarce here, and rates of ill-health, poverty and deprivation depressing. Christians believe that Jesus is to be found at the heart of all suffering, that somehow he shares it himself. He also prompts and enables all kinds of new beginnings; and some people have been working hard to fan new life into flame in this valley, Christian communities among them. Once dominant, chapels and churches have certainly declined drastically, but contrary to many forecasts, they haven’t all gone the way of the pits. In the borough which includes Senghenydd, they’re to be found running food banks, youth clubs, groups for young people excluded from school; they offer community nursing, financial counselling, meals for older people, the support of street pastors – picking up revellers who’ve not quite made it through their night out. A hundred years ago this community endured unspeakable suffering; and slowly, gradually, and with the commitment of many people of goodwill, it’s managed to start again.