The Self Rescuer (British Coal Video)
Miners: watch this video. It might just save your life one day.
A video addition to a long tradition. Though enormous strides were taken by the nationalised coal industry in terms of making postwar mineworkers far safer than their predecessors, the colliery remained a potentially hazardous workplace. Numerous films were made to encourage health and safety practices including - after 1967 when the technology was perfected and later made compulsory - the use of the self-rescuer, which supplied emergency air to counteract carbon monoxide.
While earlier films were produced by the National Coal Board Film Unit, this later one was made by NCB-TV, the Board's fledgling video unit. It's a no-frills production, based on a deadpan talk to camera, and using the classic educational technique of summarising what the viewer has seen and heard with 'points to remember' - points that just might one day save that viewer's life.
Re-training for workmen and information for colliery visitors on the use of
the self rescuer.
Tags
Health & Safety at Work
Work can be a matter of life and death. Explore how video helped spread the gospel of ‘Elf’n’Safety’ and improved Britain’s workplaces
As employers and government grew gradually but increasingly conscious of responsibilities towards the wellbeing of staff at work, so grew the role of film in the workplace. The moving image, with its emotional power and its ability to stick in the memory (especially when resorting to graphic imagery), was well placed to help get key health and safety messaging across both to employees, exhorted to follow safe practices, and to employers and managers encouraged to make conditions as safe as possible (or at least, as safe as the law requires of them).
And when things go wrong, the filmmaker may be there to help pick up the pieces, documenting or dramatising the consequences. In the era of videotape cameras and videotape viewing, late in the 20th century, the role of film in ‘Elf’n’Safety’ only grew bigger. This collection explores how it did it
16 videos in this collection
1
2
Disability Discrimination Act: Act Now
3
Handle with Care
4
First Aid in the Laboratory: Chemical Spillages
5
Make Health Your Business
6
Health and Safety at Work for Enfield
7
Safety's No Accident
8
Illegal Manriding
9
The Self Rescuer
10
Contraband Kills
11
Fighting the Odds
12
Fire Service Demonstrate House Fire
13
Pointers To Good Safety Management: Caring Occupations
14
Pointers To Good Safety Management: Equestrian Work
15
Pointers To Good Safety Management: In a Garage
16