When Futureheads singer Barry Hyde was commissioned by Sunderland city council to create an album inspired by the north-east’s mining heritage, he was astonished to discover an unexpected personal connection to the project.
“A historian friend of mine – Keith Gregson – told me that at least two and perhaps more of my ancestors had died in the Trimdon Grange mining disaster,” the singer says, referring to the 1882 explosion in County Durham that killed 69 men and boys. “My great-grandmother’s sons, Thomas and Joseph, were 13 and 14 respectively. There was also another Joseph Hyde, 23, and William J Hyde, 26, who we think might be related.”
