“THEY spend their lives in dark, with danger fraught,

Remote from nature's beauties, far below,

Winning the coal, oft dearly bought

To drive the wheel, the hearth make glow.”

ONLY the stoniest of hearts can remain unmoved by the words – or more particularly to the stirring tune – of the miners’ hymn Gresford, which commemorates a 1934 north Wales pit disaster when an explosion killed 266 men and boys.

Tony Benn said that every time it is played the song should act as a reminder of the enormous debt we owe to pitmen who worked to make Britain an industrial power.

For Chris McDonald, boss of the Materials Processing Institute (MPI) in Middlesbrough, mere mention of the word ‘Gresford’ has him welling up with tears.

“I spent a lot of my life playing in a colliery band,” says Chris, who was raised in a Durham pit community, studied what his tutor warned him was ‘the hardest course at Cambridge University’, and now leads a team of researchers striving to help North-East companies compete globally.

He continues: “One of my favourite days of the year is Durham Big Meeting*. I play in the Durham Miners’ Association band, based at South Hetton.

"Like most people in County Durham I come from a family with a mining background. Both grandfathers were miners – at Blackhall and Sherburn Hill. I’m from Blackhall. When I hear Gresford, it does something to me that I really struggle to explain. It gets me deep.”

As his voice begins to crack with emotion it becomes clear how Chris has a strong affinity for the region’s industrial heritage, but his working life is all about looking forward.

At the end of last year MPI took the bold step of going it alone after being the in-house team of research boffins who had worked as part of British Steel, Corus, and latterly Indian multi-national Tata, for 70 years.

Chris, 38, explains: “A few of us decided that it might be better for us to be separate from Tata because we had a lot to offer other companies. We had all joined what was a large corporate organisation, but it was exciting rather than frightening to strike out on our own and set up a small business.

“We now work with a wide range of materials, not just steel, but ceramics, cement and other metals. Doing things in-house was, in a way, holding us back from fulfilling our potential.”

MPI was founded as the British Iron and Steel Research Association in 1945, as a central research centre for the industry. Many advanced processes which are now standard were first developed at its laboratories. Put simply, it is a place where clever people with specialist knowledge and equipment help put theories to the test. Some of those ideas, if they pass rigorous testing, might go on to become viable commercially and give British firms a competitive edge.

The development of the national Catapult centres – the government’s innovation hothouses – have helped to promote the importance of research and development as a key tool in the bid to help British business become world beaters. MPI’s independent status, expertise and links with a wide range of industries makes it capable of playing a crucial role in that bid, says Chris, who notes that the fledgling business is hitting all of its targets only four months after it began to trade.

“We are 90 per cent industry-funded which makes us much less reliant upon public funding than other research institutions, and we are not subject to the whims of changes in policy,” he says.

“We are not-for-profit. That means we don’t so much measure our success on the balance sheet but more in terms of the impact we have in helping our customers to do things better.

“Interestingly, as part of Tata we were relatively well known across the world but no one on Teesside knew who we were. Part of what we are trying to do now is to support UK-based and Teesside industries to become even more competitive. TVU - the local enterprise partnership - have been very helpful in supporting those efforts,” says Chris, speaking from his office on Eston Road, Middlesbrough.

He recalls: “When I left school I wanted to spend time in industry instead of going straight off to university. I applied to lots of places but the only offer I got was from British Steel. Strangely enough I now work in the same office where I worked back in the mid 1990s.”

On its website MPI talks about its pride in carrying forward an industrial tradition. It is a sentiment that could also apply to Chris himself who began his career in the Teesside steel industry and continues to help companies test their mettle.

*Durham Miners' Gala takes place on Saturday July 11. Visit durhamminers.org/Gala.html