This is a unique archive of children's hopes, fears, views and memories during times when political shifts affected and risked educational potential, performance and aspiration. When career prospects for girls were equally at risk in mining dominated areas it reveals how a creative counter movement in a coalfield community during the bleak days of the 1990s pit closures was strengthened and supported by a namedropping backlash of heartening support wiping out boundaries of class or political slant. The outcome then was positively motivated youngsters, with some remarkable and diverse results right up to the present day.

A Barnsley miner's daughter, Mel Dyke is a former bank clerk and Consumers' Association lecturer who completed Sir Alec Clegg's mature student teacher course. From 1973 she was employed at Bretton Hall College and then the University of Leeds as an education lecturer and link tutor.

Now an educational consultant and speaker on the Arts in Action from Grimethorpe to Hollywood, her previously published work includes a range of diagnostic/support strategies, All for Barnsley, Barnsley & Beyond and involvement in a number of community books including The Bus to Barnsley Market and the Grimethorpe Book in a Day.

As featured in the Barnsley Chronicle.