Mining museum celebrates the folk who helped build our country - Susan Dalgety
I have coal mining to thank for meeting my husband. Thirty years ago, while at a Scottish Labour conference in Inverness, I was introduced to him by the late Cllr Peter Boyes, then a leading figure in the Coalfields Communities Campaign.
My husband was the organisation’s national research officer and had travelled north to promote its work at the conference. Two years later, Peter was the guest of honour at our wedding in Edinburgh City Chambers.
I thought of Peter when I read of the new campaign to support the National Mining Museum at Newtongrange. He had been a miner at the Monktonhall pit and was active in the 1984-85 strike.
His sometimes bluff approach to politics didn’t always go down well with folk, but he was the kind of man you would want on your side. Tough, loyal, funny. A true servant of the Labour Party and the people he represented.
The Newtongrange museum is a tribute to the generations of men whose hard work, courage and ingenuity powered this nation.
The advances of the industrial revolution were only possible because men and boys risked their lives daily to hew coal miles below ground. Many lost their lives doing their job. Many more suffered ill-health because of the impact of coal dust on their lungs.
It is vital that their stories are kept alive for future generations, and that we never forget the debt we owe to Scotland’s coal miners and their families.
The museum needs to raise nearly half a million pounds to protect its A-listed buildings and bring the winding engine back to life. And it has plans to develop a new hub for storytelling and learning, so that it can properly preserve its important artefacts and stories for decades to come.
Museums are traditionally full of the stuff collected by rich people over the centuries, from portraits of Kings and Queens to historical objects from other countries.
But the history of ordinary men and women, the people who built our country with their bare hands, often at great cost to their health, deserves to be preserved with the same care as the stories of generals or famous artists.