Mining is in the blood of Jon Applegate and he shows Prime Time his impressive collection of mining memorabilia. Mining captivates one man whose memorabilia connects him with his roots.

Jon Applegate, 55, left London to return to his South Wales roots three years and that sparked his passion for mining relics.

His own father and his father's five brothers worked as miners and one, Aneurin, died when a journey carrying coal broke away. That all too common tragedy drove his father to leave the industry and the area.

Now Jon, who was born in Llantrisant, has amassed a collection of fifty lamps, 19 lamp checks and other pieces of memorabilia from women's clogs worn on the surface to picks and water jacks.

"There's a lot of trouble and strife with these. Every item, if they could speak could tell you a story," said Jon.

"The people who owned these and carried these (lamps), they're all gone. They're silent witnesses to what happened to people underground."

His lamp collection at his miner's cottage at Garn-yr-erw in Blaenavon dates from around a c.1720 basic copper candle holder to the plastic cap and battery operated lamp still used today and represents the evolution of the Welsh lamp.

He has nineteenth century Davy lamps used to test for methane gas with the flame surrounded by gauze and the Clanny lamp which offered some light with the flame surrounded by a glass cylinder. Later lamps had features such as the electronic igniter from c.1910.

Collectors can pay £200 to £500 for a Davy unbonneted lamp from c.1862 but at the other end a copper candleholder would cost just £20 to £30. The leading Welsh manufacturer was Thomas and Williams of Aberdare.

Lamp checks were issued to miners at the lamp room when they picked up their lamp and they indicated who was left underground in the event of an accident. He collects those from local pits and prices average at £10 to £25 unless they are very special.

To him the humble and workaday items filling his home are treasures mined from a rich seam of history. "It's the history of what people had to go through to actually work. Going down a mine today is fascinating but you can imagine what it was like in the dust and there was no safety equipment and you'd run the risk of not coming out again because mine owners were very, very self-centred. They didn't care how you lived, or how you died as long as you each turned out an amount of coal each day.

He is determined to preserve his collection for posterity. "When I'm dead and gone all this collection will go in a museum. It's not going to be sold off and sent off to America. This is going to stay in Wales somewhere, I don't care where it is."

You can contact Jon Applegate on 01495 792446.