COLONEL the Shire horse shares his 20th birthday celebrations with the National Coal Mining Museum for England tomorrow.

Visitors are being asked to come along and watch his cake being cut at the museum near Grange Moor.

The celebrations will kick off in style with an out-of-the ordinary performance from the outstanding vocal group The Clerks today. The museum will be holding the performance underground for the first time.

A special exhibition called Basically Banners opens to the public for the summer on Friday, June 6. It showcases many of the colliery banners that are held at the Museum, along with a few others that have been kindly donated specially for the exhibition.

In the middle of June, there will be two performances at the museum.

The first is Brassed Off, performed by Wakefield Little Theatre on Saturday, June 14, in a special outdoor performance with the original pit-head as the backdrop.

On Saturday, June 21, the Last Night at the Proms arrives at the museum.

Elland Silver brass band will be playing a special outdoor concert

The Museum opened to the public on June 6, 1988, as the Yorkshire Mining Museum and became the National Coal Mining Museum for England on June 28, 1995.

The museum is the current White Rose Visitor Attraction of the Year and the Wakefield District Business Awards Business of the Year.

For more information please call the Museum on 01924 848806 or email info@ncm.org.uk or visit the website at www.ncm.org.uk