Ryan Davies worked at the Port Talbot steelworks for 33 years and from his very first day, he heard rumours that the plant was on the verge of closing.
Whispers would spread among his colleagues about new ownership and redundancies. Usually, they weren’t true.
“You took it with a pinch of salt,” he recalls.
It was an exhausting job. He remembers the clanging of metal and the high-pitched whining of steam, as well as the fear of gas leaks. In the summer it became “excruciatingly” hot inside the plant and his shifts lasted 12 hours.
But he also valued his job. Being a steelworker was part of his identity.
Then, a few years ago, he heard a new rumour: that Tata Steel, the plant’s Indian owners, was to close its blast furnaces. This one turned out to be true.
The two furnaces were switched off in July and September last year, part of a restructure that would ultimately remove around 2,000 jobs, half of the number employed there.