Facts and Figures - Or, Whatever Happened to Dick (1970)

For more information on 'King Coal', a major exploration of Britain's coal mining industry as seen on film, visit http://www.bfi.org.uk/coal.html

Witty, brief, basic - and bleak. Here's another side of the National Coal Board's amazingly rich, diverse and addictive work for the screen. Following Lord Robens' 1961 appointment as NCB Chairman, safety became a higher priority than ever before. Annual safety campaigns became a fixture of the coal industry calendar, and films played a major part.

TV Cartoons, run by George Dunning (best remembered for 'Yellow Submarine') contributed some two dozen animations to these campaigns over the years. This one's characteristic: unambiguous message, unpretentiously inventive animation and a blackly comic tone. Note the variety of names representing miners onscreen - Dai and Jock, as well as Tom, Dick and Harry. 'Facts and Figures' was made available in all the coalfields, Welsh, Scottish and English. (Patrick Russell)

All titles on the BFI Films channel are preserved in the vast collections of the BFI National Archive. To find out more about the Archive visit http://www.bfi.org.uk/archive-collections