TWO portraits of people who worked in North-East coal mines are to come under the hammer next week.

The sale, at Newcastle auction house Anderson and Garland, comes as the region remembers the 1984 miners' strike.

John Anderson, picture specialist at Anderson and Garland, said: "When Spennymoor pitman artist Norman Cornish drew the faces of these two Durham miners, in the late 1950s, the North-East could still boast dozens of flourishing collieries. Only Ellington now remains to remind us of our once great North-East industry, and even then with a question mark over its long-term future.

"Thankfully, Norman and a handful of other local artists were on hand to record the faces of those who helped this industry survive so long.

"These are only two of literally hundreds he produced both when working in and later retiring from coalmining to become a full-time professional artist."

One of the portraits has an inscription on the back saying it was drawn by Cornish while taking part in an independent television programme in the late 1950s when the coalmining industry was already under threat.

Made in 1959 by an offshoot of Granada TV and shown on Tyne Tees Television, it was called the Burning Question.

The pictures will be sold on Tuesday.