Radstock Nub News has been welcomed to the re-opened Somerset Coalfield Life at Radstock Museum ; with the welcoming Treasurer not sure what to expect as it threw open the doors after coronavirus.

The Museum re-opened today (August 16) at 2pm and will be open again on Wednesday.

Museum visitors can expect quite a few changes - and need to bring a card to buy their tickets since the admissions desk is operating a card-only system.

Other changes include:

-The buffet and the shop remain closed

- Some interactive displays have been removed, while others have been taped off where appropriate Covid-secure measures could not be introduced

- all general surfaces in the Museum have been treated with a long-lasting and resilient coating which kills all viruses including coronavirus and the team say parts of the building that experience harder wear during visits, such as the banisters, will be regularly disinfected.

Those banisters lead up to the second floor of the award-winning Museum which charts the history of all the industries in and around the Somer Valley including printing, mining of course and the railways.

But one new exhibit is particularly timely.

A new mini exhibition has been assembled by Museum Chairman, Nick Hall, describing the Spanish 'flu pandemic in 1918-1920.

The influenza first appeared in March 1918, but a second wave in Oct/Nov 1918 and a third in Feb/Mar 1919 caused up to 50 million deaths around the world.

Some 20 per cent of all the deaths recorded in Midsomer Norton and Radstock in those years were caused by influenza and the resulting bacterial pneumonia.