Artwork will remind village of its miners
DAUGHTER OF LAST MAN TAKEN BY PIT A KEY PLAYER IN PROJECT
THEY were the backbone of the community and now a statue is being unveiled to honour village miners, more than 40 years after its pit closed.
And one of the driving forces behind the memorial in Langley Park – the County Durham village where football legend Sir Bobby Robson was raised – is the daughter of the last pitman to die at work in the colliery.
Christine Pringle was just two years old when her father Eric Weighill was killed at the age of 29 by a fall of stones while working in the Victoria Seam of Langley Park colliery in February 1971.
The mine closed four years later. At 11am today, a 10ft statue of a miner will be unveiled in the village, four miles west of Durham City.
Christine, a schoolteacher who still lives in Langley Park, is one of a five-strong committee of women who formed the Langley Park Miners’ Memorial Group to raise funds for the statue.
The others, Julie Dixon, Donna Donaghy, Gwen Harvey and Denise Long, also had relatives who worked down the pit.
Langley Park is now a popular commuter village but Christine explained: “The only reason for the village existing was for the mine, just like so many other villages in County Durham.
“But it helps to understand the present if you know about the past.
“Other nearby villages have mining memorials to highlight their heritage; we thought Langley Park ought to have one too.” Although Christine, now 50, was too young to properly remember her father when he died, she said: “I grew up hearing stories about him, so it is as if I did know him. This memorial is honouring his memory and the memory of all the other miners who worked there, and many more who died while working underground. It was dangerous and dirty work but the camaraderie was so strong.
“We on the Memorial Committee were all teenagers during the miners’ strike of 1984. The Langley Park pit had long gone by then but many of the men had been transferred to work at Horden on the east Durham coast. We remember the sense of community during the strike.”
Group chairman Julia Dixon’s grandfather Tommy Gardner, who also worked at the colliery, was jointly awarded the Daily Herald Heroism Medal in 1947 for rescuing a miner trapped in the pit.
She said the local community had taken part in various fundraising events, while County Durham
Community Foundation, Esh Parish Council, the Sir James Knott Trust and Durham County Council’s Area Action Partnership had also provided support.
The sculpture has been designed by Sunderland-based artist Mark Burns Cassell, working with metal fabricator and artist Dr Ron Lawson from Fencehouses, near Sunderland.
Mark also has strong connections with Langley Park, where his maternal grandfather Jack Malone also worked underground for decades. Mark, 31, said: “I spent a lot of time in Langley Park with my grandparents. I based some of the features of the miner on Jack, so it has been a poignant commission.”
Artist Ron, 57, who is a senior lecturer at Cumbria University, said: “It was a collaborative co-produced piece of artwork which got me back into the factory. I was a sheet metal worker by trade so it was great seeing it being created and it was equally as lovely working with the residents to help them turn their idea into a real piece of artwork.”