To gain interviews, our director went back to his home town of Wakefield to conduct interviews with his family members who had been involved in coal mining. His interviewees consisted of Marie Wright, an ex teacher who’s father Frank Price worked down the mine for most of his life. Roy Wright, Marie Wright’s husband, spent most of his life as a carpet fitter however he worked in the pit offices for a short time as a young man. Jack Wright, another relation, did steel work at Nostell Priory Pit for 23 years and was involved in both the strike of  1972 and 1984. The interviews proved very resourceful as he was able to record over an hours worth of footage. One of the difficulties that he encountered was that he found it difficult to interview Roy and Jack simultaneously. This was because it didn’t allow him time to change levels or move the mic closer to the interviewee speaking. In retrospect it may have been better for him to have interviewed them separately for a smoother set of interviews. Fortunately this can be amended in the editing however more experience in interviewing may have been needed to conduct an interview in that style.

On the other hand, Marie’s interviews went very smoothly and gave us a lot of content. Elliot found out a bit more about his great grandfather, such as that he played for Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest whilst also working in the coal mines. Other than this claim to fame, Marie also brought up quite an interesting lead. On Facebook, she is part of a group called “Crofton’s Old Lumpers” Which is a group dedicated to keeping one of the communities that was separated by the closures together. This is quite an interesting find as it wouldn’t have been a way we would have thought mining communities would have stayed together. Hopefully there will be time to explore this further in the edit.

(Below, Miners lamp and piece of coal which were discussed in the interviews)