Year 5 Mining Disaster Talk

Class: Class 11 (Year 5) Year: 2021 - 2022

Year 5 enjoyed a visit from some gentlemen who had worked at Golborne Colliery.

This was in connection to our work on local history where we have been researching different mining disasters which have occurred locally.

On 18th March 1979, 10 men were sadly killed after an explosion at Golborne Colliery and there was only 1 survivor. Mr Eric Foster, who worked down the mine on the trains, and Mr Brian Rawsthorne, who was an apprentice engineer and in fact was the only survivor, visited school to tell us all about working down the mines and what happened on this fateful day.

We were extremely lucky to be able to listen first hand to their experiences and it really helped us to fully understand what happened.

Thank you very much to Mr Foster and Mr and Mrs Rawsthorne for giving up their afternoon to come and speak to us.

The children in Year 5 were extremely well behaved and respectful and our visitors commented at the end of the afternoon about how fantastic they had been.

Well done, Year 5!