King Coal

South Shields Museum and Gallery

12th May 2018

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The Quest visited South Shields Museum and Gallery to help mark 50 years since the closure of Whitburn Colliery and 25 years since the closure of Westoe Colliery.  The exhibition, King Coal, celebrated every aspect of South Tyneside's mining heritage.  Visitors were invited to bring along pictures of their friends and family with links to mining to help make a specially commissioned fabric, to be made into the South Tyneside Shirt.  Sadly the event was not publicised and attendance was low.  However a detailed conversation with a retired worker from the Barbour Factory in South Shields led to radical improvement in the quality of seams in future shirts.