Toon legend Andy Cole’s dad features in museum’s black miners exhibition
THE dad of Toon legend Andy Cole is featured in a new exhibition celebrating black miners in the UK.
Lincoln Cole worked in the Nottinghamshire coalfield before his son became a star striker with Newcastle United, Man Utd and England.
His portrait is featured at the Woodhorn museum in Ashington, Northumberland.
Mac Williams, 75, who worked at Dawdon Colliery, Durham, from the age of 16, is also part of the exhibition.
He said the display brought back “good memories”.
“I think it’s important for the stories to be told to enlighten people’s minds that we did have black miners working underground,” he said.
“I really filled up when I saw my picture in there because I wasn’t expecting it. It was magic, marvellous. The miners must never be forgotten.”
The exhibition forms part of the Black Miners Museum Project.
It has collected more than 240 names of miners and their collieries and carried out more than 60 interviews.
Lincoln emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1957 and worked as a coal miner in
Gedling, Notting
hamshire, from 1965 to 1987. In a recent interview, Andy, 49, said: “My father was very quiet. He came here from the Caribbean in the 1950s. He was hard-working, trying to raise his family to the best of his capabilities.”
In 2016, Lincoln, then 84, remembered the camaraderie of working underground. “It was scary and rough”, he recalled.
“But there was somebody there to give you a helping hand.”
Norma Gregory, curator of Digging Deep, told how many young men from the Commonwealth and beyond travelled to the UK seeking work.
“The exhibition is about ensuring diverse mining stories are heard and shared, and their contribution to UK mining is remembered for the future,” she said.
Digging Deep, Coal Miners of African Caribbean Heritage.
runs until November 1.