THE Gwynedd quarrymen who roofed the world with slate share a culture with remote tribes from the Amazon to New Guinea, according to a BAFTA-winning documentary maker

Steve Robinson, who made BBC’s acclaimed Tribe series with ex-Royal Marine Bruce Parry, is fresh from directing a film about the National Slate Museum in Llanberis for BBC 4.

The first in the new series of Inside Museums is now available on iPlayer and shows how the museum tells the story of the men who hacked out the precious black gold shipped all over the world to roof the British Empire.

The timing is particularly appropriate because the museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales was recently granted World Heritage Status by UNESCO.

The museum complex includes a row of quarrymen’s houses, transported there from Blaenau Ffestiniog and rebuilt with the décor, furniture and fittings of 1860, 1901 and 1969.

Steve, from Swansea, whose credits also include the BAFTA winning Amazon with Bruce Parry, and Mekong with Sue Perkins, worked with Caernarfon-based film and TV company Cwmni Da to make the half-hour long programme.

He said: “The slate industry of North Wales isn’t as well known as the coal mines in South Wales but there’s a unique culture there centred round the Caban, the cabin where the men would eat together.

“It became a place of learning, debate, poetry and song – a place where working men came together to share their culture. There’s something very tribal about it.

“I’ve worked all over the world and lots of the tribes we visited had men’s huts where the men would gather for singing, dancing and talking – just like the Caban.”

It’s a culture familiar to Cwmni Da – three of the seven-strong team who made the programme have their roots in the slate industry including managing director Llion Iwan whose grandfather, John Morgan Thomas, worked at the giant Penrhyn Quarry and whose heirlooms have been used for the show which is presented by Welsh-speaking BBC Radio 6 DJ Huw Stephens, from Cardiff.

Llion said: “Quite a few of us at Cwmni Da are from families who worked at the slate quarries so when the chance came to pitch for this it was one of those genuine passion projects for us.

“I have a huge pile of photos going back to the 1890s taken at various quarries in the area and many of these were used in the programme – when you see your grandfather aged 16 in a picture of a group of boys in the quarry it does strike you how hard life was for them.

“We were keen to make the programme to share the story about the quarrying community and what they endured but also the positive elements, their self-reliance and the social aspects of their lives.

“We also wanted to show the museum and the way it tells the story of the quarrymen and how it is housed in the Gilfach workshops which have been preserved as they were in their heyday.”