Mining Memories with St David’s High School

Mining Memories – an oral history exhibition curated by S2 pupils from St David’s High School!

This new exhibition, which opened Thursday 6th February 2025, was the culmination of the hard-work and learning from a group of S2 pupils from St David’s High School, Dalkeith. The project was part of the Museums Galleries Scotland “Workforce for the Future” project, in partnership with Developing the Young Workforce, and saw the pupils from St David’s High School work in partnership with staff from the Mining Museum to learn about the heritage sector, gain new skills and take ownership of their own exhibition.

“Oral history is important to capture people’s experiences and memories before they are no longer here” – pupil from St David’s High School

The group from S2 at St David’s all volunteered to participate and their project activities included:

• a careers talk from several different staff members from NMMS, exploring the wealth of careers available across the heritage and culture sector
• learnt about Scotland’s rich mining heritage and, specifically, the history of mining in Midlothian through workshops with the NMMS Education Manager and tours with NMMS ex-miner Tour Guides
• undertook oral history training – learning everything from it’s importance, best practice to how to ask open ended questions
• created their themes for their exhibition and wrote questions and subjects for the oral history interviews
• interviewed real ex-miners about their experiences and memories from working underground
• designed and installed their own exhibition – including creating activities for visitors to take part in such as a green screen photo booth and a Miner’s Strike poster wall!

We were delighted that all participating pupils have achieved their Heritage Hero Award – Silver from Archaeology Scotland!! A selection of the oral history recordings are available to listen to at the bottom of this page.

The below film was created by S2 St David’s to introduce their exhibition to you.

Oral Histories

The following are a selection of oral histories recorded and made by pupils from St David’s with ex-miners.

1. Sinclair Sutherland, ex-miner and current Tour Guide at NMMS – can be viewed on the NMMS Vimeo channel here.
2. Jim Lennie, ex-miner and current Tour Guide at NMMS – can be viewed on NMMS Vimeo channel here.
3. James Hogg, ex-miner and retired Tour Guide at NMMS – can be viewed on NMMS Vimeo channel here.

Many thanks to everyone who has helped make this project happen including;

• St David’s High School
• Developing the Young Workforce
• Museums Galleries Scotland
• NMMS staff
• Oral history participants – James Hogg, Jim Lennie and Sinclair Sutherland