I think Hilda was an early uptaker of the theory “Global Warming”, by trade she was a chemist.
Correct, cheaper to buy in timber from Canada, the Baltic and Russia, than grow at home.
Correct, cheaper to buy in Coal from Poland and crush Coal unions in Britain.
Then in the eighties there was the unimaginable boom in Oil from the North Sea.
I never understood, why it needed to be extracted – flat out?
Maybe Hilda had known at some point in the future there would be a movement of “Keep it in the ground”.
Then there was the Natural Gas boom.
This transformed energy in the U.K.
We could start winding down the Coal industry and start winding down the Coal Fired Power Plants, in favour of Natural Gas.
It gave the country an infrastructure boom, as everything was converted from Coal Gas to Natural Gas.
Then in 2021 the price of Natural Gas went through the roof.
Do not keep all your eggs in one basket.