FAMILY reunions and pit memories surround the dedication of a memorial to miners killed at Hickleton Colliery.

Many of the families of those men will be at Thurnscoe cemetery for a ceremony which will be performed by Fr Mervyn Thompson, Rector of St Helen’s and St Hilda’s.

It is the culmination of nearly four year’s research and fund-raising by Dearne Memorial Group after Peter Shields found the headstone of Thomas Ivey on the rubbish heap at the back of a hut in the cemetery.

“I decided to do this after finishing the baby memorial and we raised £1,450 in a short time, the Coalfield Regeneration Trust granted the rest,” he said.

The £8,000 black granite memorial, engraved with 161 names, will be unveiled by Beryl Sanderson and her grandson, John Louis Kemp, 13. Beryl’s father, George Baker, a shotfirer, was killed in a roof fall at the colliery in 1959 at the age of 37. John is the same age as the youngest miner to be killed at the pit - J Flanagan in 1903.

Mr Shields found he had set himself an onerous task.

“I trawled through dusty reports in the attic of the Yorkshire NUM offices to confirm deaths as some men died later from injuries sustained in pit accidents and others were not eligible as they did not die from accidents at the colliery."