Auchengeich Disaster

Blantyre's Ain Website

Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland

Poems about Miners

Auchengeich Disaster

Colliery

In Auchengeich there stauns a pit
The wheel above it isnae turnin
For on a gray September morn
The fires o’ Hell below were burnin

Tho in below the coal lay rich
It’s richer nou for aa that burnin
For forty sieven brave men lie deid
Tae wives an sweetherts ne’er returnin

The seams are rich in Auchengeich
The coal below is black and glistenin
But, och, the cost is faur ower dear
For human lives there is nae recknin

For coal is black and coal is red
And coal is rich beyond a treasure
It’s black wi wark an red wi bluid
It’s richness nou in lives we measure

Far better that we’d never wrocht
A thousan years o’ wark an’ grievin
For the coal is black like the mournin shroud
The women left behind are weavin
.

~~~

~~~

Bill Baillie: Even though I was only 7 years old I remember this well. There were 2 pits at Auchengeich and my dad worked down the mine opposite to the one the explosion took place. My memories were of a mining community pulling together and doing as much for each other as they could. Also the great work done by the Salvation Army who opened up a soup kitchen, day and night, for the couple of days it took to bring the bodies to the surface.

If you have any Poems… Send them to Bill

Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland

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