Colin Telfer – at the Beck Edge Garden
Colin Telfer worked at the West Cumbrian pits for 20 years. He was a winder/engine man working on the pit top, with experience at Risehow, Lowca and Solway collieries, and he also worked for a time at Distington Engineering at Workington.
After being made redundant, he enrolled on a two-year course at Carlisle art college – now the Cumbria Institute – to retrain as a sign-writer. While there he started to play around with clay and soon developed his own ideas, making small mining sculptures using coal dust.
About 15 years ago he received his first major contract at Egremont and has been sculpting ever since. Most of his work is made from a mixture of iron ore dust from Florence Mine in Egremont, and resin. Others also include slate or coal.
Colin’s figures start life as a wooden framework, covered in foam filler, then clay which he buys from Wetheriggs Pottery. They are sanded, rubbed down with wire wool then finished with Colin’s own-recipe coating mixture which contains graphite and slate powder and polishes up to a gleaming finish.
(Text courtesy of Julian Thurgood – Visit Cumbria)
In 2000, as one of the St Bees village Millennium projects, a sculpture was commissioned from Colin Telfer. This was to be of Bega arriving in her small boat from Ireland. This was placed in the Beck Edge garden by the railway station. A time capsule was placed in the base. The shot above shows the sculpture shortly after unveiling.