Young people in their 20s and 30s want to learn more about the glory years of mining in Barnsley, according to the National Union of Mineworkers.
The young enthusiasts were among those attending heritage days last week at the NUM headquarters on Huddersfield Road, Barnsley. The exhibits ignited fond memories for older people, like making toast on a toasting fork over a blazing coal fire.
Chris Skidmore, of the NUM, said: "One of the things was the number of young people that came in. They were very young when the miners' strike was on in 1984 - or not even born. They said the industrial history of Barnsley is not taught in schools and that's why they were fascinated."
Visitors could see collections of mining memorabilia, with books, photographs and NUM banners. There were also film clips of Barnsley area pits, now long gone.
Chris said the NUM hoped to apply for Heritage Lottery funding to create an oral history of Barnsley mining which could be put on CDs. "It's already been done in Nottingham and Kent," he said. "It's a good idea because some of the books we have are in a precarious state."
Chris once bumped into Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall who told him the film crew had "a terrible time" trying to find a location with real pits. "We don't want to get to a time when pits are erased from people's memories," said Chris.
His NUM colleague John 'Inky' Thomson added: "We have kids now who have never seen coal on a fire and all those different colours in the flames."
This is the fourth year of the heritage days and the NUM is now looking at holding them at the weekend so more people can attend.
