WORK has begun on a memorial statue to honour men and boys killed in the pits.

A turf-cutting ceremony took place on Friday (June 20) ahead of the creation of a life-size statue of a miner, his wife and child for Esh Winning, in County Durham.

The statue will honour people who died in the collieries of Esh Winning, Waterhouses, Hedley Hill and East Hedleyhope.

Work on the memorial is expected to take three months, followed by an unveiling ceremony.

A long-running community campaign raised £65,000 to pay for the statue.

That included donations from the County Durham Community Foundation, Esh Winning Community Association, Hargreaves, Durham Rural Community Council, the Co-operative Society and others.

Councillor John Robinson, chairman of Durham County Council, was part of Friday's event.

He said: “This will be a wonderful memorial to the local community and the families of those who worked in the mines.”

Hargreaves, a mining firm which is based in Esh Winning, is the main commercial supporter of the project.

Development director Ian Parkin said the company was honoured to be involved.

Bob Heslop, a devoted leader of the memorial group, sadly died last year, before the campaign reached fruition.