91Èȱ¬

I grew up in South Wales and was surrounded by the coal mining industry. Journeys always had a back drop of pit heads and slag heaps. The work of the miners was arduous, dirty and some times fatal. In the late 1940's I always enjoyed visiting my Uncle Glyn, Aunt Lillian and there family. Glyn was a miner and I always remember him returning from work covered in coal dust and bathing in a tin bath in front of the kitchen fire - water had been heated on the fire for about two hours beforehand. As a child and teenager I was aware of the history of disasters surrounding the industry which continued into the 1980s. The sense of community in the mining towns and villages was something very special. The decline of the mining industry throughout the UK has had a marked, often deleterious effect on those communities. That men, women and children no longer have to work underground to make the 'coal owners' rich is to be welcomed. But we are in danger of losing this part of our history which fuelled the Industrial Revolution. This lamp, designed to reduce underground explosions which claimed many lives is part of that history and deserves it's place in the list of items.