As the rain pours and the wind buffets outside and there is no hope of a car boot sale today, it seems right to post another virtual postcard (or two) of our "Holiday at Home". So snuggle up to your favourite squashy cushion with a cup of something warming and let's begin...
A model of the area around the current museum building. There was a passenger line, a coalfield line and a coal canal. The museum is in the building with the pointed entrance - top right of the photo.
We live in part of the old Somerset Coalfield. Many people are amazed to discover that coal was mined in this part of the country, but at it's peak there were dozens of pit heads locally, the closest was less than quarter of a mile away from where I sit writing to you now!
You know how it is, there are visitor attractions literally on your doorstep which you've never visited and yet you have flown around the world to visit Sydney Opera House or The Collosseum in Rome. Our Holiday at Home gave us opportunities to rectify such contradictions of modern life and to start understanding our local history. It is also a case of visiting a place, or doing an activity, when the time is right... some activities / places just float around in your conscious mind for a few months, or years, before finding a prepared and open bed of brain cells which finally say "Yes! Now is the time - here is the space!" And then your conscious mind tells you "Go visit Radstock Museum, because you'll be Very Glad Indeed that you did...!"
This carriage was found as a wreck in a nearby field and then fully restored and painted.
So we did. We visited Radstock Museum. And I am Oh So Glad that we did. To be precise, exploring the contents of the Museum was one of My Most Favourite Events of the Year. Of course, having been 'born and bred' just a few miles away, it was Very Exciting Indeed for me to learn about my social and industrial heritage. Museums are great certainly, but is there anything more Exciting and Thrilling than to see exhibits with names of places which you've known since forever? There is Ownership and Kinship and Pride in seeing a little slice of your own memory cells lovingly displayed in a clear glass case in a Museum. It is almost, very nearly almost, as good as seeing your own Name or Photo in that smooth glass case. Don't you agree?
What are we having for tea, Mum?
Radstock Museum is housed in the old Market Hall where I remember shopping amongst market stalls with my family when I was a small child. Just as I remember seeing some of the freight trains outside the building, long ago. I grew up only a mile or so from the line which carried The Titfield Thunderbolt. (You may have watched this 1950's movie as a matinee in the good old days, when TV channels showed matinees......)
All aboard the train! Shall we go to Bristol for the day?
This award winning Museum is a tribute to the Somerset Coalminer
- his work
- the home he lived in
- his local co-operative shop
- how his children were educated
- the sports games he played and his leisure time
- and his final resting place
The miners shot at the Dunkerton pit were just a mile from my childhood home - I never knew this had happened.
And what a tribute it is! My excitement at exploring local history often gave way to heartfelt emotion at the hard lives of these people. Less than two generations away, can we even begin to imagine the pain of crawling on hands and knees pulling a cart full of coal through a barely candle-lit shallow tunnel? With a guss and crook tied around the bare flesh of your waist, which would quickly graze the skin and cause open wounds which never had time to heal?
The infamous guss and crook - click on this picture to enlarge
Looking at the model of the pit workers in the photo above, I couldn't help but wonder if my Grampy experienced such hard labour. Grampy worked in the stone mines which built much of twentieth century Bath. Might he have worked in such grave-like conditions? Were stone mines any 'easier' or more 'comfortable' than coal mines?
We have been Raving about the Museum for over a week to anyone who will listen! We've been urging friends and family To Go Visit because it is an Exceptional Experience.
One of the lifts used to transport miners down to the pit there would be 6 men huddled together on this lift platform with the pit pony tied into the cage above. Using a rope (!) to lower the lift cage, the controller at the top had a knot tied in the rope so that he knew when to stop lowering the cage before it hit the ground like a stone falling down a well....
Mr Bun and I will return again and again. Not least because we hope to become Members soon. Also because my Most Favourite and Heavenly local fabric shop, Midsomer Quilting, has a truly wonderful exhibition of handmade quilts on display in the Museum until the end of November. More about Midsomer Quilting another time.
So, could anything match the Joy of visiting the Museum? Could any other Holiday at Home activity or excursion delight us as much? Well, yes! Almost! Look out for Postcard Number 4, to see where we ventured next....
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