A fish and chip restaurant in Seaham, County Durham, has paid tribute to its town’s proud mining heritage with a striking 3-metre-tall steel statue.
Bells Fish & Chips unveiled the sculpture – a miner’s head known as George – at a ceremony attended by more than 120 people, including locals, family, friends and members of the fish and chip shop trade. Positioned just outside the restaurant and facing the sea, the statue stands along the original railway line that once transported coal to Seaham Harbour.
Commissioned by Bells’ owner Graham Kennedy, the statue holds personal significance as both his father and father-in-law were coal miners in the local area.
Graham commented: “My father was a miner and after retiring from the pits, he came and worked with me. And Alleson, my wife, her father was also a miner. Sadly, he passed away on the day that the artist phoned me to say that the statue was finished. He was called George, so we named the statue after him.Â
“But it’s not just for them , it’s a toast to all miners. It commemorates them all.”
TV presenter Matt Baker, who grew up just two miles from Seaham and was once a customer of Bells, unveiled the statue to the sound of the Pittington Colliery Band. The band’s connection runs deep as well as it used to rehearse 200 yards from Graham’s first fish and chip shop in Pittington.
Created by renowned North East sculptor Ray Lonsdale, the piece took four months to build. Ray used his signature technique of layering small sections of corten weathering steel to form the miner’s face. The preparations for the unveiling took a further 10 months.
Glad to finally have the statue on display, Graham described the moment as “amazing” and added: “I look at the cameras and see people visiting the statue at 6 o’clock in the morning and then coming back later to get a photograph in a different light. It’s touching to know it means something to so many and it’s nice to give something back to the community. We’ve done well as a business, we won the Fish & Chip Restaurant award in February, and I wanted to commemorate that success and honour the town’s mining roots.”
Seaham now boasts tributes to key chapters of its history, as Graham explained: “We’ve got Tommy, a First World War soldier, on the seafront. At the harbour, there’s a tribute to the nine lifeboat crew members lost in 1962. And now, with George, we honour our mining legacy. The major parts of Seaham’s story are all remembered.”
