A GROUP of folk dancers, singers and musicians are planning to mark
the 150th anniversary of a pit explosion in Sheffield that claimed the
lives of six miners.
They are aiming to hold commemorative events
and unveil a brass plaque in memory of the victims of the tragedy at Westwood Colliery in High Green.
The sword dance team are called
Six Jolly Miners, taking their name from a song based on the dangers
facing all mining communities and the bravery of miners - a song that
can still be heard in the Black Bull in Ecclesfield at Christmas.
The
song has a special resonance as the 150th anniversary approaches of the
disaster on April 4, 1862 when an underground explosion at Westwood
Colliery killed six miners. An inquest at the Salutation Inn in High
Green concluded that miners had been working with candles instead of
safety lamps.
Planning has started for an event at High Green
Primary School on April 23 which will feature an exhibition, poetry, art
and a re-enactment. The next day it is intended to unveil a brass
plaque, listing the victims of the disaster, and to stage music and
dance in High Green Miners’ Welfare.
The group, formed two years
ago, is working with a new local history group and research assistant
Julie Powell has uncovered information about the lives of the six
colliers and their families and is trying to find out if they have any
descendants still living in the area.
Six Jolly Miners celebrate
the region’s mining heritage and perform at various events. They
recently helped to raise £500 for a project to restore Grenoside’s only
listed building, the Reading Room.
They currently have five
dancers from Sheffield and two from Newcastle and work with ceilidh team
the B Team, led by John and Vic Bowden.
Members are planning to
dance in Northumberland next month to commemorate another mining
disaster 150 years ago. But it was the Barnsley area, with coal seams
stretching into Sheffield, that was renowned as the most dangerous in
the country.
“As a group of performers, the team has come to
appreciate what a great debt we owe to our coal mining ancestors and how
mining disasters wrecked the lives of thousands of South Yorkshire
families and devastated entire communities,” said a member of the dance
team, Joe Dunn.
Joe lives in Grenoside and has retired as
headteacher of Southey Green Primary School, where he enthused pupils
about folk dancing.
‘We’re miners in name only, but we are sword
dancers and if our performances cause people to reflect a while, all
well and good. We shouldn’t forget them.”
Six Jolly Miners
practise on a Tuesday night at the Burton Street Foundation in
Hillsborough and are looking for recruits to learn a “vigorous” sword
dance. They have male and female members.
One of their recent
ambitions was to name one of their techniques for the locking of swords
after fellow sword dancer Mike Steel, who died of cancer in the summer
at the age of 58. They perfected the move in time for his daughter
Emma’s wedding last month.
Visit www.sixjollyminers.com or contact Joe Dunn on 2460463.
From: http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/dancers_to_remember_mine_disaster_victims_1_4052139
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