British artist and sculptor Andy DeComyn, whose most notable creation is the Shot at Dawn Memorial. The sculpture, made of Derbyshire stone, is five metres long, two metres high and a metre wide. It will have a bronze seam of coal running through it, with 25 plaques incorporated that would tell the 200-year hard history of British mining.
“It goes back to the 1800s, when women and children were working in appalling conditions, and right up to the 1990s when most of the pits closed,” said DeComyn. “By then working conditions were a lot better, but statistically it was still the most dangerous job you could do.” He noted that coal mining was an important part of the United Kingdom’s industrial and social history. “When I was at school, we learned about mining in geography lessons. Now kids learn about it in history,” he added.
According to the British artist, although people tend to focus on the industry’s bad side today, coal mining changed the world so many decades ago. “It fuelled the Industrial Revolution and brought us to where we are today,” he said.
