I Have recently decided to restart investigating my family tree I started to look up some details on my father who was killed in the 1959 Auchengeich disaster. I Googled Auchengeich (something I have deliberately avoided until now) and hit on your site.
I was 18years of age when my father was killed and the memories are still fresh, 5 days at the pit head being told everything is going fine "no news is good news" by the pit management and also seeing my fathers' fellow workers who were doing everything they could, coming back up out of the pit with their bird cages in their hands shaking their heads, and their little canaries lying dead - they were the true heroes risking their lives for friends and also letting "US" the worried relatives know the real truth.
Rab Price (my Father) and Aaron Price (my uncle, and father to Joan Price McEwan) - always remembered.
Unfortunately I will never be able to forget the newspaper reporter who came to our door on Wednesday evening the 23rd Sept., asking for a photo of my uncle, I apologizes saying "I know you’re only doing your job, but we did not want any publicity". Had I known at the time he was after a headline scoop because one miner was missing - yes my Uncle Aaron - I would have killed the b*****d.
There was also the local window cleaner’s wife that came asking for a loan of money the following week as her husband hadn't been able to work because of rain, all because the papers were forecasting large pay outs from a fund.
Or the lawyer who held off paying out my father’s estate for three years, due to me - an eighteen year old at the time - willing and signing a letter giving everything to my mother, but did he bother to say my letter was not legal until I was twenty one? - did he hell.
Can you wonder why I kept away from anything to do with Auchengeich?
Bob Price |
