Hi There,
Just looking through some of the old photos with interest as I was a mine official at Longannet and previously at Castlebridge, Frances, Seafield and Comrie pits.

I know and have worked with all the men in Dougal Bryces photos and it was good to see them again.
I was the last official sent down to investigate the flooding at Longannet when it happened and was the official listed on the report from the mines inspectorate as being "slightly late" in reporting back to the surface. That's what they said but in reality, as I knew some of the men in the mines rescue that night, I was reported to them as being "missing underground, presumed drowned".

Many of us who worked there feel that there was something unusual about the circumstances of the flooding which will never be proved but I'm also glad that I got out alive that night along with the other men sent down with me.

If you need any other info then please email and I will help where I can.

Regards from Rab Campbell
Ex Longannet Deputy.

The remains of the last deep coal mine in Scotland. It supplied the nearby power station until in 2002,
a dam broke and flooded the mine.

The stockpile of coal for the power station, now brought in by rail via Alloa or occasionally Culross in the background.

Photograph from Geograph British Isles

Hi Fionn
I was a miner for 26 years in Scotland, my name is Dougal Bryce.

Hullo
I’m frae Fife, originally Kelty, my name is Jock Redmond, my father and his father all worked in the pits around the village and my mothers brothers all worked around the pits there also.

When I left school in 1960, at 15, I was down at the pit at the Lindsay on the Monday, my father Bobby Redmond worked in Lidsay and ended up on the tables when he got sick and older.
My Uncle Davy Millar was on the cage at the Lindsay, my other uncle Eck worked on the pug at the Aitken, in fact my aunty Effie worked on the tables in the Aitken also.

I left the pits and joined the army and when I came back from the army I went back down the pit at Solsgirth, Castlandhill and Comrie. My only souvenirs left from mining days is my black hat I got at Muircockhall when I finished my mining training, and the half a dozen odd Blue scars and a good cough. My family are all dead now due to Miners diseases, but I am proud to say I am a Miner From Fife and I write about Kelty and Miners anytime I write my poetry and Folk songs,

Being a miner is something very special there is a brotherhood that I haven’t seen anywhere else, I miss the pits at times.
Maybe you can send me info on membership.

I spend my time between Kansas where my family stay and Scotland where I sometimes stay.

Send me an address and I will send my fiver to join
John Bearcat Redmond

Mr Bearcat

I was born and brought up in Blackridge, a Scottish mining village. My papa was a miner there, I remeber him taking me down to the pit, West Rigg, at the bottom of the village. He was going to get his wages, he sat me on the counter and the man behind the counter said "That's a Braw Lass you've got there". Anyway what I would like to know is what was the wages of a miner in the 1940s?

Thankyou
Margaret

http://www.labournet.net/ukunion/0305/wartime1.html

In 1944 underground miners were earning £5 per day and their wage tribunal refused to raise piece rates. When the Government announced that the national average industrial manual wage had reached £6 10s, miners came out on unofficial strike in South Wales, Kent, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, and Scotland - some 220,000 in South Wales and Yorkshire alone. With the invasion of France looming, the press attacked the miners.

A South Wales miner of 30 years standing commented “... The argument that a strike would let our soldiers down was countered by men who had brothers and sons in the forces who, so they claimed, had urged them to fight and maintain their customs or privileges. They argued that they must retain something for those absent ones to come back to, while the suggestion that we should wait for further negotiations was swamped by the reply that we had already waited a long while...”

Friday 21st April 1944, 'the beginning of the end of insecurity in miners' lives; the Government intervene, restored differentials, and the miners won the highest minimum wage in Britain. Their average earnings ranked 81st in 1938, but rose to 14th after the strikes. Miners' pay agreement signed in London: