Mr Ralston, from Northamptonshire, spent nearly four years working underground at the Lady, when he was called up to work in the coal mines during the Second World War.

Mr Ralston's visit launched a major project by the Scottish Mining Museum to commemorate the work of Scotland's Bevin Boys, the conscripts who served their country during the Second World War by working in the coal mines.

The museum, which has won grant funding from the Home Front Recall Trust for the project, now wants to hear from surviving Bevin Boys, so that their memories can be preserved for future generations.

Julia Stephen, the museum's curator, said: "The centrepiece of the project will be to create an oral history of the Scottish Bevin Boys, by interviewing as many of them as we can find. Theirs is a story of wartime sacrifice that is too often forgotten, and we want to set the history straight.

"The interviews will be recorded and transcribed. They will form the basis both of a permanent archive at the museum, and of an ambitious exhibition next autumn, which will subsequently tour former mining areas throughout Scotland.

"We will also be using the information we gather to create educational material for schools and others - an increasingly important aspect of the museum's work."

From 1943 to 1945, some 48,000 men aged between 18 and 25 were directed to carry out their National Service in the coal mines rather than the armed forces, so as to meet the nation's energy needs.

They became known as the Bevin Boys, named after the wartime Labour Minister, and later Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin.
The work was hard, dangerous and un-glamorous. Because they wore no uniform, Bevin Boys were often challenged in the streets as to why they had not joined the war effort and were widely assumed, wrongly, to be conscientious objectors. Many disliked the experience intensely.

Julia Stephen continued: "Sixty years on, it seems to us that the least we can do is give these brave and steadfast men the chance to put their extraordinary story on the record, once and for all time."

Any former Bevin Boys who would like to take part in the project should contact Julia at the Scottish Mining Museum, Lady Victoria Colliery, Newtongrange.