Behind the scenes at the National Coal Mining Museum: Meet the volunteers who are preserving the mining legacy

Wednesdays are busy at the mining museum. Arrive soon after 10am and you will already find plenty of visitors bustling around the hub, groups from all over the world taking tours around the Pithead Baths, and the Wacky Wednesday activity group well underway.

Four decades have passed since mining – as it once was – ended, yet take note of the visitors around the site and you will find a huge range of young and old alike coming to learn about the mining history.

Seventy or so people volunteer at the museum, and their varied life experiences – including ex-miners, teachers and engineers to name a few – help to enrich the museum’s offering and enhance the visitor experience.

Ian Guest used to work as an electrician for mines in the area, and moved into computing while working for British Coal. As a way to enhance visitor understanding of the mining machinery, Ian creates interactive models using designs from his computer.

One such example is Ian’s model mine car tippler. Ian sends his designs to the museum’s laser cutter and 3D printer before assembling the models.

The model is able to move and can demonstrate to visitors in a more comprehensible format how large-scale machinery would have worked.

Ian’s most ambitious project to date, though, is his model winding machine. This demonstrates to visitors how the cage which took miners down to the pit was operated, offering visitors the unique chance to see the control panel and cage working together – something impossible to see in real life due to the distance between the two.

Ian explained: “Inside there is something called a microprocessor, an ESP32. I've written computer code that takes the movement of the levers and the settings of all these switches.

“Depending on how far forward you push the lever, the motor runs faster and the dial moves round to represent how fast you're winding.”

Ian said he thrives on problem solving, and the opportunity to exercise that through volunteering is one of the reasons he was attracted to the role.

He said: “I love problem solving, it's what I thrive on. I'll go away and think about things, start knocking a few ideas together; it might be it's the second or third one before I get something that's practical, but it's the enjoyment of doing that thought process.”

Among the volunteers, while there was a common consensus that visitors are becoming increasingly removed from the mining history – several volunteers recalled school children not knowing what coal looks like, or even bars of soap – there was also there a tangible sense of optimism.

Yes, visitors might have less knowledge about the history nowadays, but there also seems to be a growing appetite for learning about it – as the museum’s visitor-base can attest to, with groups travelling from abroad, families and school groups visiting, and a recent uptick in retired miners bringing their grandchildren.

Volunteer Graham Pratt previously worked as an underground deputy between 1975 and 2002, largely in the Doncaster area, finishing in the Selby coalfield.

He spoke of this increasing separation of the younger generations from the mining history, but also of the enjoyment from teaching people about it.

Graham said: “[It’s] absolutely brilliant. I love it here, because I can pass my knowledge on of all the years. Most of the machinery that's here I've worked with. I've driven underground, so I can pass that on to kids.”

David Wilson, a former engineer, spoke of the importance of preserving the mining legacy, he said: “There is heritage, and if the heritage goes, it's gone forever.

“We have to keep it going, it's important.

“You've got to remember that the mining industry kept Britain afloat; not just in the last world war, but in previous ones – it was the Industrial Revolution.

“When we go to the Victorian Gallery and talk to [the school groups] about the children going underground at sort of five or six years old, we say 'can you imagine doing that? Now you're much better off, because you don't have to do anything like that.’

“But by the same token, without that, the coal wouldn't have fuelled the ships, wouldn't have fuelled the industry, the steam, the steel; all these things, it wouldn't have happened without coal.

“[Coal was] a major contribution to the economy of Britain.”

Former teachers Julia Chalkley and Lesley Randall are the ebullient hosts of Wacky Wednesdays, a fun and interactive weekly activity group for pre-school children to learn about mining.

Speaking of the Wacky Wednesday curriculum and the continued interest of the children who return each week, Julia said: “It has been sort of honed over the years; we try and start children off with what coal is, and gradually work them through what a miner looks like, what the miner does underground, what the miner's day is like, we get into mining machinery in the summer term, and we usually have a pretend trip to Skegness to round the year off.

“It's those stories come alive for them, and as they get older, because they've got that familiarity of visiting with family, they'll bring other members of the family to see things that they've experienced while they've been here.

“It gives them a feeling that this is a space that's just right for them.”

Lesley spoke of the social benefits not just for the children but for the volunteers, adding: “We get a camaraderie just like the miners had a camaraderie, among the volunteers.

“It's that contact with children and their grandparents and parents and carers – you want to support them and you want to see them grow. That's the most important aspect: you develop relationships with the actual people on a Wednesday morning.”

One of the perhaps less obvious roles of the volunteers is to simply listen to the visitors.

Those who do have mining histories, be it through family or from personal experience, might not have many opportunities in their day-to-day life where this unique exchange of specialist knowledge between themselves and the volunteers can occur.

Colin Harrison, who began volunteering with his wife Nicola in 2017, said: “The most important thing is conversations, because the whole point of when you go out and do a tour, it's the discussion with the visitors.

“They want to talk often about their families and their experiences. And that's the whole point of having the volunteers here, because without that, they don't get that opportunity.”

Colin’s wife Nicola used to teach English, and applies some of that expertise to one of her roles writing and researching mining literature for Voices in the Coalshed – the museum’s writing project.

Nicola also conducts tours of the Pithead Baths and discusses mining equipment with visitors during “discovery spots” in the hub.

Nicola said: “Some people say to me ‘why do you do it?’

“Well because it was the most important thing.

“Without coal miners there was no Industrial Revolution, no steel industry. The British Empire wasn't without the miners, and we can't forget that they gave so much to this country.

“It made Britain great - that was them, and they shouldn't be forgotten.”