As Black As .....................

There was an article on the radio yesterday about some artist making a sculpture out of a newly created substance that was blacker than anything else.

I got to thinking that most children nowadays won't have ever knowingly seen coal. At least not up close. Just the black stones in the garden where the coal bunker used to be and a pile of it on the Thomas day at the railway. They will know about charcoal though, but as a BBQ fuel that perversely is only used in summer on hot days. Coal fires that some of us will recall really only had a couple hundred years as a primary heat source.

So I will make a point at our exhibition this weekend of asking children what they think the black stones are and why I'm feeding them to my loco.

Here is one of many descriptions of the substance.

I remain astonished that they can presume to portray it on the iPad screen

MichaelG.

Jason when I saw people coming out of pits, they were not shiny, only black and I wish as many Yorkshire people do that they still came up black. Thanks Maggy in the heavens above.

Bri

Bri, you sure she not stoking the fires down below

Ian S C

I don`t think Ol` Mags had a halo (or horns either). Believe it would have happened sooner or later anyway but it happened quickly like getting rid of steam on BR. The proliferation of smokeless zones have probably hastened a big reduction in coal useage. Progress. I remember a small boy asking Mum "whats an EP?"

John

Or some kids visiting our museum spotting an old gramophone, and asking "is that an old fashioned CD player"?

Ian S C

As part of an Engineering in schools demo I ran a Stirling engine from the heat of a bowl of water and asked the children to trace where the energy came from:

We went kettle - electricity - power station - ( here I had intended to go coal - fossilised sunlight ) but none of the 9 to 11 year olds had ever seen coal and only 2 out of 22 had heard of it

we live in rural south Shropshire where heating is either oil or wood-burning stoves.

Tony

Last night I sort of watched an English TV program on some bloke doing up a miners cottage, coal came up quite a bit. Although he didn't know until then, both sides of his family had been miners. The mortar in the brick work was mixed with coal dust. An artist did a picture of a bird on sacking, using powdered coal, she liked how it sparkled, it did look quite nice. Might have been in Manchester.

Ian S C