Rich seams

Ceri Thompson, the curator of the Big Pit: National Coal Museum, has just produced a publication to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the miners' strike. "The passions aroused by the strike are still strong after 25 years," he says in his introduction. And Thompson should know, as 25 years ago he was a flying picket himself.

When the miners went on strike in 1984, he had been working in a colliery for 16 years and like hundreds of thousands of others employed in the UK's pits, his life was changed forever by the dispute. But unlike many others, Thompson's fortunes were changed for the better.

"If it was not for the strike and if the pits had stayed open in the same way, I'd be underground now and probably coughing a lot more," he says. "When it came to the end of the colliery's life, a lot of us were offered other collieries to go to, but they were becoming fewer and fewer and I didn't want to spend another five years somewhere and then have to look for work again."

So Thompson, who was in his early 30s when the pit he worked in closed, decided he needed a new vocation. "Being a nurse was one option, as I was always interested in medical matters; most miners are as you tend to see a lot of these types of things - injuries and deaths.

"But I had always liked museums and had spent a lot of my childhood at the National Museum of Wales. A lot of my education came from my local library and the museum. School sort of passed me by a little bit."

But even though Thompson had not taken to school, he started to educate himself while working as a miner. "Towards the end of my mining career I was going to night school and decided to learn Welsh. I enjoyed doing that; it taught me how to learn again academically. It was in a nice, relaxed atmosphere, and we could have a pint and a game of snooker as well, so it was perfect."

Learning Welsh opened new doors to Thompson, as one of the people coordinating the course suggested a college that would prepare him for taking a university degree. He took the opportunity and spent two years at an adult education college before doing a degree in Welsh history at the University of Cardiff.

After leaving university, Thompson's keenness to work in museums was not matched by the availability of work. "When I went to the jobs forum at the university you could see them smirking when I said I wanted to work in a museum," he says.

But Thompson persevered, and before graduating he had already started working as a guide at Rhondda Heritage Park. He continued this and also did some volunteering at the old Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum.

His big break came in 1994 when he got a job as a research assistant with the Council of Museums in Wales compiling a database of mining objects in Welsh museums. He also wrote a report, Burning Issue, on the condition of Welsh mining museums.

Cataloguing Welsh mining collections gave him the chance to visit museums, which was a good way of mak-ing contacts. He also added to his skills: "We needed a computer database so I had to learn how to use a computer. The only time I had seen one before then was when I was working in a factory that was making the cases to go round them, so that was a bit of a jump. They just gave me a computer and said: 'OK, there is the handbook and there is the computer.'"

By 1999 it had been decided that a national coal mining museum should be created at the Big Pit in Blaenavon and Thompson was the obvious choice as curator. The museum was given £7.2m for a redevelopment, with a lot of the money being spent on saving the buildings and the rest on interpretation.

The revamped museum includes an underground tour taken by former miners, an audiovisual presentation of mining methods throughout the ages and an exhibition in the restored Pithead baths.

Thompson and the team at the Big Pit must have done something right as the museum won the 2005 Gulbenkian Prize for museums and galleries. Thompson said he didn't expect victory, although he became more confident at the awards ceremony: "We went up to London, we enjoyed it and they gave us free wine, so I was half-cut, and I thought 'now we are going to win'."

Thompson is pleased with the way the Big Pit has built on the Gulbenkian victory. "I am really proud of what we have achieved. You have got to make an effort to get here, and when you are here the rain is horizontal. And the snow lasts months, stopping in July and starting again in September. But we get about 160,000 visitors a year.

"The only complaints I have are people phoning up and playing hell over the picture of Margaret Thatcher we have up on the wall as you come in," he continues.

"We put her there to provoke this type of thing, so people would say she should not be here, but she is the most important person in the coal industry over the past 30 years. And without her I would not be here, I'd still be underground. I have a doll of her by my computer; she is my mentor."

Thompson says he has tried to create a balanced view of the history of coal mining in Wales, although the museum clearly tells the miners' story. "We don't say, yes, the miners were perfectly right. The only time we slip into that type of bravado is at the end, with a quote saying: 'We will be back.'

It is a bit of a champions' call, but you never know, there are more mines opening, and there is a need for coal." It is interesting that some of the working mines in West Glamorgan have recently been sending their apprentices to the Big Pit for training on engines.

As for Thompson himself, it's been a long road from going underground as a miner at 16 years old to being the curator of an award-winning museum. But now he's made it, he's going nowhere fast. "You try and get me out," he says. "I'd like to work until I was 75, but I'm not sure they'd let me."