Tata Steel Plans to Sell British Plants, Threatening 15000 Jobs

Port Talbot is my home town. I left many years ago but still keep in touch and visit occasionally. Everyone is directly or indirectly connected to the steelworks.

My father worked in steel, my brother still does, and even I did for a gap year before university.

Everyone (well, in those parts) knows the joke about a man being asked 'That thing up there in the sky, is that the sun or the moon?', to which the reply was 'I don't know, I'm from Port Talbot' (... a sideways dig at the once extreme pollution there).

It's not the most beautiful analogy, but moving away from home to find a job is like committing adultery. Once you've done it once, you're perfectly capable of doing it again.

But what if you haven't? What if you're a steelworker in your 50s whose skills are steel-specific? What if you've never left your home town because of things like rootedness, community - and the good jobs that were once on offer?