ABSTRACT
The industrial heritage industry would seem to show that many people have at least a passing interest in mining sites. Nostalgia for coal mining is, naturally, strongest in former mining areas where it summons up a sense of warm communities, financial security and honest labour, but it can also be found among people whose connections with the industry date back several generations, or are non-existent. For people living in mining districts, nostalgia is a major emotion because it is one of the ways in which community memory is kept alive and a sense of the past is engendered and sustained. Souvenirs of mining, often described as ‘collectables’ would appear to be big business. Banners are important objects in the mining museums and heritage sites where they are displayed both as part of the narrative of the history of mining and as cultural objects in their own right.
