^^ I’m not sure the nostalgia is for the actual coal mining work. It’s a nostalgia for the jobs that paid well. While I’m sure miners have a camaraderie and that in some areas, being a miner is an important part of their identity, the work is hard and dangerous and dirty. Miners in Australia are still coming down with deadly lung diseases. However, coal mining drove whole towns and regional areas and really, nothing has replaced the jobs lost when mines closed. People didn’t have other work to go to and they haven’t had the luxury, time and opportunity to retrain. So those who had become comfortably well-off because of the work they did, now have no work. Of course, I’m talking about miners in countries like the UK, or the US or Australia or New Zealand, in some countries, miners are still paid a pittance and work under dreadful conditions. I can totally understand how those who were once financially very well-off are now wishing those days would return.
The lack of alternative industry and opportunities to retrain is something governments could have improved with more forethought. Instead of promising to open coal mines, and we have the same problem here, with the promise of jobs, why can’t our governments look at other industries that could be established in those areas. Renewable energy options would be a good place to look.