August update: the country in crisis

The highlight of my month was travelling to Melbourne to the IMPC Asia Pacific 2022 conference to present a keynote lecture on my 35 years with Minerals Engineering journal. It was a surreal experience to be standing before a large audience of mineral processors for the first time in nearly 3 years and, after a succession of online conferences, to be able to relax over a few beers with fellow delegates.

Chatting over beers with  Lachlan Bartsch of Rio Tinto, Australia
Photo: Ron Goodman

One of the themes of my talk was sustainability and the efforts that the mining industry is making to reduce water and energy consumption.  Ironically water and energy are now priorities domestically, as households in Britain are facing huge rises in energy bills, due to massive increases in gas prices brought about by the continuing war in Ukraine. And these once rain drenched islands are now suffering drought conditions due to lack of rain and the unusually high temperatures over the last couple of months. 

A sun-dried Falmouth

Although Cornwall has not suffered as badly as many rain depleted parts of the country, the seemingly endless sunny days have certainly boosted the tourist trade. Half the world seemed to pour into Falmouth on the 10th of the month when the RAF aerobatics team, the Red Arrows, performed their amazing annual display over Gyllyngvase beach on a hot and sunny evening.

A crowded Falmouth Gyllyngvase Beach

In my keynote in Melbourne I also talked about our return from Zambia in 1973, to a UK which was very much different from the one that we left in 1969. It was a time of austerity; high rates of inflation had forced Edward Heath's Conservative government to impose pay rise capping, which in turn led to unrest among the powerful trade unions, as wages could not keep up with prices.

The parallels with today's UK are remarkable. The cost of living crisis worsens, with soaring fuel bills forecast, the health service is in disarray and in the first week of the month the Bank of England announced that Britain was in its worst economic crisis in our lifetime. But governance of the country was on hold due to the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, and the former chancellor, Rishi Sunak, concentrating more on their race for Tory leadership, while the outgoing Prime Minister, Boris Johnston, and the current Chancellor, Nadhim Zahaw, were both on holiday!

Due to being overseas I missed a great Cornish Mining Sundowner on the 18th of the month in Falmouth. There were many new faces, including colleagues from Maelgwyn Mineral Services in Wales, and Suzanne Hunt, who left Cornwall for Australia after being awarded a PhD from CSM, and is now head of exploration at Oz Minerals. I thank Nick Wilshaw, of gsl, for supplying the photo below.

@barrywills