The Auchengeich mining disaster
This story was published in the News & Chronicle on the 50th anniversary of the Auchengeich Mining Disaster.
IT was the sight of ambulances and rescue vehicles speeding in the direction of Auchengeich Colliery that first alerted many people to a tragedy unfolding deep underground.
News 50 years ago travelled a lot slower than it does now. Hardly anyone in mining communities had phones. The first some families heard that their menfolk were in danger would have come from a frantic knocking at the door as neighbours rushed from house to house, raising the alarm.
On that awful Friday morning, September 18, 1959, 47 men lost their lives leaving scores of children fatherless.
Auchengeich Colliery was at Bridgend, Moodiesburn, but the disaster scarred communities over a wide area.
Condorrat was one of the worst affected, with six families in mourning.
While mining families have always lived with the threat of tragedy, the loss of so many men in an underground fire gives Auchengeich a special place in the annals of the Scottish coalfield.
The loss is still deeply felt by many in the former mining communities of North Lanarkshire and Strathkelvin.
The Kilsyth Chronicle of September 25, told the full harrowing story.
It revealed that the death toll could have been twice as high. The men who died were the second contingent to have made the half-mile journey to the coalface on a bogie train.
They were blanketed in smoke which was billowing from a blazing ventilation fan which had short-circuited.
The Chronicle said: "They were met by a deputy, who conducted them to a short connecting road between the main air intake and return airway, and the party passed to safety through the two doors which seal off the return from the intake airway.
"All made their way back to the surface via the down fresh air shaft."
However, the bogie train had in the meantime returned to the bottom of the shaft, where another 48 mienrs clambered aboard.
"They were lowered down the mine, but on reaching the terminal were met by smoke and fumes. They signalled to the engineman in the haulage house to pull the train back.
"When it had reached the brow of the mine, and only about 300 yards from safety, the train stopped.
"One of the men on the train made his way through the smoke and reached safety, but the others were trapped. The haulage man also struggled through the smoke and got to the surface."
One of these men died shortly after getting out of the pit.
By this time a fleet of ambulances was bringing doctors and nurses to the pithead and a mine rescue team was dispatched from Coatbridge.
That night local clergy dispensed what spiritual comfort they could among the shivering throng of relatives. The Salvation Army offered other sustenance - food to any who wanted it.
A poem in a later edition of the Chronicle tells how "weeping wives and mothers" came to wait and pray for "husbands sons and brothers."
One can only imagine the sense of hopelessness that swept through the crowd, by now numbering 1200, when National Coal Board chairman Ronald Parker announced the mine must be flooded to put out the fire.
"The thickening smoke issuing from the pit made the danger very ominous, and the rescuers had to be withdrawn," said the Chronicle.
"The position was rendered hopeless, and it was found necessary to start flooding the pit to quell the outbreak. It was Monday night before it was risked allowing the rescuers to descend the pit again.
"During the night they found 43 of the men still in the bogies and another two behind the bogies, and further search had to be made for the last victim."
The paper went on to name the Condorrat men who died. John Mulholland, 50, John Muir, 38, Patrick Harvey, 39, Thomas Stokes, 32, Alex Lang, 35, and Alexander Beattie, 26, who had only been married the previous July.
"All the Condorrat victims except Beattie leave families," reported the Kilsyth Chronicle.
The tragedy also touched Kilsyth itself. Donald Weir, 30, lived with his wife May at St Andrew's Place. A talented footballer, he had played for Kilsyth Rangers and went on to enjoy spells with Celtic and Forfar. His son Paul turned two just two days after his father's death.
The bereaved families might have drawn some comfort from the rescue workers' assurances that the men's suffering would have been brief. They said all died of carbon monoxide poisoning within seconds of the train being stopped.
Miners' union leader Abe Moffat appealed for the crowd to go home but was shouted down by a few whose sense of hopelessness found expression in heckling.
The Chronicle concluded its report by giving details of the funerals, four of which it said would take place at Holy Cross Church in Croy.
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Sunday 05 February 2012
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