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The Auchengeich Disaster

[ Roud - ; Mudcat 118794 ; words Norman Buchan, music trad.]

Norman Buchan: 101 Scottish Songs Sheila Douglas: The Sang’s the Thing

On 18 September 1959, 47 men were killed in the Auchengeich coal mine near the village of Moodiesburn, Lanarkshire, when a faulty fan purifying the air in the colliery went on fire due to an electrical fault.

Dick Gaughan sang Norman Buchan’s song The Auchengeich Disaster in 1975 on the High Level Ranters’ Topic album The Bonny Pit Laddie. This track was also included in 1993 on the expanded Topic CD reissue of their industrial folk music anthology The Iron Muse. and in 2002 on Gaughan’s Greentrax anthology Prentice Piece. Tommy Gilfellon, Johnny Handle and/or Raymond Challinor noted on the original album:

Although not descriptive of the actuality of the disaster, this it one of the finest songs of this ‘genre’ in our industrial tradition. This version sung by Dick Gaughan was learned from Georgie Hamilton of Edinburgh who was brought up in the Lanarkshire coalfield and is a seemingly bottomless well of good songs. The tune is a very close variant of the Scots song Skippin Barefoot Through the Heather.

Dick Gaughan also sang Auchengeich Disaster in 1986 on his Scotland’s Trade Union Centre album of songs of the Scottish Miners, True and Bold. He noted on his now defunct website:

To commemorate the 47 miners killed at Auchengeich Colliery in Lanarkshire on 18 September 1959.

Norman Buchan wrote this to the tune known as Skippin Barfit Thro the Heather.

Rod Paterson sang Auchengeich, with an additional verse by him, in 1987 on The Easy Club’s album Skirlie Beat.They noted:

A mining disaster song by collector and revival stalwart Norman Buchan MP. The tune is apparently a variant of Skipping Barefoot Through the Heather.

Heather Heywood sang The Auchengeich Disaster in 2000 on her Tradition Bearers album Lassies Fair and Laddies Braw. She noted:

This is one of the songs that I have learned from Dick Gaughan. As I grew up hearing songs about mining disasters I could easily connect with the emotions in this song.

Hamish Napier sang Auchengeich Disaster on Nae Plans’ 2014 Scottish tour at Scapa Flow Museum Oil Tank, Hoy. This recording was included in 2016 on their tour album Vol. II - Live! The First Scottish Tour.

Josie Duncan and Pablo Lafuente sang Auchengeich Mining Disaster as Young Folk Award nominees on the anthology BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2017.

Lyrics

Dick Gaughan sings The Auchengeich Disaster

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 an glistenin
But, och, the cost is faur ower dear
For human lives there is nae recknin

For coal is black an coal is reid
An coal is rich ayont a treasure
It’s black wi wark an reid wi bluid
It’s richness nou in lives we measure

Faur 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