Heritage Experiences - down t'pit

Hello All,

I attended a meeting yesterday, as part of a new research project called 'Performing the Past: Exploring the Heritage of Working-Class Communities in Yorkshire' at the National Coal Mining Museum for England

Performing the Past is part of a White Rose University Consortium funded project...and more on that in future blog entries I'm sure!

National Coal Mining Museum for England, Wakefield.

  Anyway, I had a really (no, really) fantastic heritage experience; a group of us went on the 'underground tour' of the redundant mine (redundant in the sense of producing coal, I mean...it's actually far from 'redundant' in many other ways!).....it has a kind of after-life...

The Underground Tour at NCMM 

The guide for our 'heritage' experience was an ex-miner, as all the guides for the underground tours are, and what a fabulous heritage experience guide he was!..The picture (left) is not us btw...we are much, much older...plus, we were not allowed to take any cameras (or anything with batteries etc) down the mine (so I don't know how this particular photo was taken?), but it's interesting that the health and safety working practices of the mine still continue.....

But, to the Tour - our guide took us underground (c.500 feet...to the height of the Blackpool Tower apparently) and through mining history, from late 18th century to the 1980s (when the mine was closed...See Orgreave if you're interested...which I see is back in the news again...significantly.)
It was a sublime experience, full of detail, pathos, humour and just the right amount of violence (call it anger) (if there can be 'just the right amount' of violence...maybe I'm thinking Zizek here?). The labyrinthine spaces of the mine were literally and brilliantly brought to life by our Ex-Miner...he was, in the immortal words of Bowie, 'Chameleon, Comedian, Corinthian and Caricature'!
(D.Bowie; The Bewlay Brothers, 1971)
Mark.