The Beamish Museum

So, the benefit of the 9 hour drive yesterday was that we were at the Beamish Museum as it opened. I have wanted to visit here for a long time and it lived up to expecatations. We experienced life in the 1800s, early 1900s and 1940s. I took lots of photos and it was hard to choose, The Puffing Billy train, the ride we took on a huge steam train, miners cottages, the town bakery, confectioners, stables, grocers, drapery, soldiers from the Durham Light Infantry doing a recruitment drive as per 1913 to name a few. The best bit for me though was the tour down the mine. We all had to look daft in big helmets, thank goodness for the helmets. Mr L constantly banged his head, and when our guide sat on a little stool to tell us all how the coal was extracted we all stayed bent in half to get some idea of what it may have been like to work down the mine. A great experience.

The reason we were in Durham was the annual AHS reunion, a company Mr L worked for and the regional managers plus wives meet up in a different area of the country each year. As we stood outside the mine in the afternoon before going in, we noticed a plaque above the entrance, that said the shaft had been reopened and the first stone laid in 1979 by Sir Derek Ezra, Chairman of the Coal Board. He was also the Chairman of AHS, so all our group knew him and I was honoured to give him and his wife a guided tour of LC when he visited in 1996.

We had a lovely evening catching up with friends and wining and dining.