To mark Dementia Awareness Week, Big Pit recently launched a ground-breaking series of underground tours designed specifically to engage people living with dementia.

The tours, believed to be the first of their kind in Wales and beyond, follow the same principles as the regular tours, but with a few adjustments.

Guides, for example, will help members of the group with their kit before they go down the mine. The visitors are also taken to slightly different stops and told about the link to coal mining and the equipment used. And the focus is on the history of the mining industry rather than modern mining techniques.

The National Museum Wales centre has worked with dementia groups since 2015 to find a way of incorporating an underground tour which would be considerate of those with the condition.

The tour is the same as for people without dementia, but it’s slightly shorter, so groups are not underground for so long, and the pace is a little slower.

All the museum staff took a brief course on dementia as part of training last year.

The first groups to take the tour and the guides that accompanied them are said to have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

For many people living with dementia it will be a way of connecting with memories of family members involved in mining or with their own past experiences.