About This Project
This is me attempting to complete something I began in 1998. Back then I was managing a community radio project in Newastle called Wolf FM. Having discovered the Internet I had begun an online project called Newcastle Community News. We were establishing Community Reporters all over Newcastle, they were exciting times.
I was intrigued by a monument in a Earsdon Church near where I was living at the time. This was a monument to the 204 miners who lost their lives in the 1862 in the New Harltley mining disaster. I put up a few web pages about this and got quite a response. A writer called Mike Kirkup sent me a book which contained an eyewitness account by a journalist of the time. This report became a “time machine” to me and inspired a song “Silent Stone” [note add song later].
I also began to broadcast (on the web) regular recordings of the journalists account as it might have been if they had radio in 1862. This was quite a lot of work back then and it petered out when I moved to Teesside in 2000. Now the technology makes this easier and I am going to attempt it again here. This is partly as a proof of concept and also to finish a job begun. I hope you find this audio account enlightening.
