WITHOUT pit closures Frank Wilson and Barry Curtis would never have started their own business.

Like so many young lads before them Frank and Barry went down the mines straight from school.

And that is where they believed they would spend the rest of their working careers: "We never wanted to do anything else we were happy working in the pit,'' says Barry.

But this week as the young entrepreneurs planned the expansion of their already thriving fibreglass manufacturing factory, they admitted it was only the pit shut down which pushed them on.

Out of work after the demise of the Durham coalfields both retrained in painting and decorating and for three years went their separate ways.

Frank, now 40, had spent some of his post-pit working life in fibreglass companies and meeting up again with Barry, 36, the hardworking friends decided to start their own company.

Northern Fibreglass Products was launched in a unit on the industrial estate at Cold Hesledon near Seaham and is now doing so well the firm is to move into bigger premises.

And though success has certainly come their way both men are not planning to move away from Murton homes. "We would never leave the North East, we have had a lot of help setting up here and we want to put something back,'' says Frank.