Light shone on one of mining's darkest tragedies

Many suffered terribly, but exactly 172 years ago 26 youngsters – some of them only seven years old – perished in one of the most tragic losses of life ever borne by the working communities.

The Huskar Pit disaster, which saw its victims drown when a ventilation shaft was swamped during heavy rain, is still writ large in history as an example of what a difficult and dangerous life mining was.

Those who died are already remembered in a monument in a South Yorkshire churchyard, but now their story is also retold in a dazzling stained glass window in the local church.

Hundreds of people from Silkstone, on the edge of the Pennines west of Barnsley, had a hand in the work, even if it was just been cutting the edge of a piece of glass for the intricate creation.

Some of them may be descended from people affected by the disaster. According to those behind the project, the window "really captured the imagination of people, from schoolchildren to pensioners."

The Huskar Pit top was in the Silkstone parish and residents involved in the church and other community groups had the idea for the window after staging a community play about the tragedy. The event raised around 12,000, but by the time a donation was made to Unicef in memory of the lost children, and more was spent marking the site where they attempted to escape, only a few thousand pounds was left over.

The Rev Simon Moor, of All Saints' Church, said: "It seemed that the idea was destined to stay on the drawing board, because to fund a new window would have cost about 25,000 and we had 2,500.

"But through various connections we were put in touch with Barnsley Adult Education service, and one of the tutors, Rachel Poole, heard about the project and said she wanted to get involved.

"Instead of using professional craftsmen, she decided to train local people to make the window. A couple of her students were involved in the design but then it was down to us for the cutting and grinding."

The finished window, which was recently installed by professional glaziers, depicts what happened to the group of young workers when a storm broke on July 4, 1838, leading to a devastating flood.

According to historical records, the day started hot and sunny, but the storm began at 2pm and raged for two hours. The rain put out the fire in the steam engine which hauled coal and men to the surface.

Foremen told the children to remain in the pit, but a group of 40 of them decided to mount an escape bid through a ventilation shaft, the top of which is still visible in Silkstone's Nabs Wood. Unfortunately, a nearby stream had swollen into a rushing torrent of water and swept down the shaft, washing the children off their feet and trapping them behind a door where the 26 died.

Mr Moor said: "Over 200 people from the village have been involved in different parts of the process and it has taken us over eight months, working six hours a day, two days a week.

"There are 26 stars in the window to represent the children who died and at our autumn bazaar last year we encouraged people just to do one cut on one star so they had made their mark."

The window was officially unveiled yesterday at the start of a flower festival in the church, which continues until Tuesday.

Ms Poole said: "We started cutting the first piece of glass on June 13, 2009 and finished in May this year after losing a few weeks of work to the snow. I have taken approximately 600 photographs, which will be whittled down to around 200 showing the whole process from start to finish. It has taken a great deal of time and effort, but I hope people will judge that it was worth it all in the end."

The festival at All Saints', Silkstone, will be open between noon and 8pm tomorrow, then 10am to 8pm Monday and Tuesday.

OVER 200 PAIRS OF HELPING HANDS

According to stained glass artist Rachel Poole, the group behind the window held 53 "making sessions" with 12 people present at each session on average.

More than 200 people have been involved in the project over 306 working hours. Ms Poole has worked out that the window-making process took a total of 3,672 hours.

Based on the national minimum wage, the labour given by local people to cut and grind the materials and make the window was worth almost 22,000.

The artist estimated that the crew got through almost 2,500 cups of tea while working on the project and ate around 530 doughnuts.

Each victim of the disaster is commemorated in the window, with their name included in a water scene. One of the flower displays in the festival is a 14ft depiction of what happened on the fateful day.