This video below was created by Julia Rich as part of a photography degree, while doing a project called “The Hole in the Ground”, it was intended as a kind of ‘docutainment’ of the sort that could be shown in museums and for visitors to places like Geevor, Botallack, Poldark mines.
Pure happenstance was that the BBC had just started to film the new series of Poldark at Botallack when Julia went there to take the photos for the AV, which gave her quite a bit of extra material to play with!
She wanted to show the realities of mining, and remind the audience that the Cornish were the ‘go-to’ miners and mine-engineers for around 200 years – and yes, there is cultural and personal pride in there. A lot of her extended family were graduates of Camborne School of Mines, both paternal uncles were graduates, and her great uncle (Harry Rich) was a Governor of it.
Many of those family members that didn’t go that precise route were involved in mining, including yet another cousin who sorted out the troubles that Rio Tinto mine in Spain was having.
If you find the surname Rich around a mining area worldwide, its a ‘high 90%’ bet it was a relative – proven in Laxey (Isle of Man), Mexico, Spain, and Millom (Lake District). If you know Pednandrea House (top of Bassett Street) Julia was definitely the third, possibly the fourth generation to live there – the family moved away to Carnon Downs when she was about 6-and-a-half. The music as stated in the AV was sent to Julia by the Musical Director of Redruth Town Band – they were playing at King Edward Mine for an open day, Julia started chatting about their music and Redruth (as you do!), and was then sent the piece. When she heard the music she started ‘seeing’ exactly where her photos should go to tell the story, rather than being a random collection. Thanks to Julia for sending this to us.