Telling our story: preserving our history
Coal mining has been a huge part of the history of Ashfield and Mansfield for more than 150 years, bringing not just employment and prosperity, but also helping to shape the very identity of the region. Though the pits – from Brierly to Silverhill and Hucknall to Sherwood – are now gone, the impact mining had on communities across Mansfield and Ashfield lives on.
Helping to preserve that history and tradition is NTU’s Professor Natalie Braber. Her work in sociolinguistics involves recognising Nottinghamshire language as heritage and fighting to record and save the unique way communication has been shaped here, including in mining communities across Ashfield and Mansfield.
“The funny thing is I went to visit heritage groups who are preserving the physical things like shovels and lights, but they aren’t preserving the language and we should be, as it’s such a big part of our heritage,” Natalie says.
The language of miners
Her book Pit Talk – Coal Miners Dialect of the East Midlands – is a study of the language of the miners, collecting together local dialects and ensuring they are not forgotten. Natalie also works with mining heritage groups across Mansfield and Ashfield, where her research also incorporates poetry, creative writing, art and music to involve participation in this preservation. She runs the website Celebrating Notts Language, which chronicles the unique way language is used locally.
Miner one worked in the mines at Sherwood and Bilsthorpe from the age of 16 until he was 41 and has lived in Sutton almost all his life. He is unequivocal about the importance of the project. “It’s essential,” he says. “I’ve been trying to teach my son about mining history so he can carry it forward. He’s been going up to the visitor centre at Pleasley and learning a lot from the old colliers there.”
“It’s part of history,” fellow local ex-miner two says. “It’s an era that made this country great.”
Hear from some former-miners on their experiences and the impact on their lives.