Based on a true story! In 1934, a group of Ashington miners and a dental mechanic hired a professor from Newcastle University to teach an evening art appreciation class. Unable to understand each other at first, they embarked on one of the most unusual experiments in British art as the pitmen learned to become painters. Within a few years, their work was taken for prestigious collections and they were celebrated throughout the British art world; but every day they worked, as before, down the mine.