George Harvey

Biking up to Knockshinnoch

The week Knockshinnoch happened, Murphy and I, that was a wee fellow that I cycled along with. We came off the night shift on the Thursday morning and we were told that Knockshinnoch had happened and when I came home my father got word to report to  Knockshinnoch that morning. I went to bed and got up and went over the Murphys and got on the bike. I said “What’s about going up to Knockshinnoch to see whats happened, so we went up on the bike.  It could have been on the radio but it must have been word of mouth. It runs in my head that we were at Maiders news shop in the morning; we walked out from the gate at Highhouse to the Main street where we were told about it; We stayed at the prefabs at the time. I waited til Murphy came home from the dayshift and we went up to Knockshinnoch then on the bikes. We went up and we seen, we went to the hole in the field for a starter. The men had been trying to put in straw and I saw the odd hutch and stuff to try and stop it from running.  Then we went over the Knockshinnoch itself and they were putting the cage up and down. Whether there was something below it… they were putting the thing down in the muck and bringing the stuff up but there was nothing much to see. Then we were told that they were going to try and rescue them through Bank No6. Oh there were a lot of people about but there was nothing that they could do. They didn’t know what was happening, the cage was going up and down but it was just slurry and water below the cage; it was a tank or something they had in below it. But we went over to Bank No6 Murphy and I, we weren’t long over and they asked for volunteers to carry supplies. I went into the baths  and I went into a locker and got pit clothes and the funny things about it was; All the days I worked in Highhouse Pit, I wore moleskins and it was a pair of white moleskin that was hanging up.  You gave your name and they gave you 3 tokens and you went down. You had to walk down Bank No 6 , I reckon  you walked about a mile down a foot in three. Then you had to get the supplies at the bottom and you carried the supplies in to the fresh air base. You sat there for a wee while and then I walked back and forward about three times carrying stuff and that was all the supplies in and what they needed. We were sitting and whether at that time, whether it was the 1st time or the 2nd time. I think it was the 2nd time… we had walked back up the dook and the minute that you came up… and that’s why I always admired the Salvation army, the salvation army was there and when you went in you got a bowl of soup and a cigarette.

Running from the gas

I think it was the 2nd time that we were back in and we were just in with our supplies and there was a big rush; the gas was coming out! What had happened was, I think what had happened at the time, was when they bored the hole through to the trapped men and because of the pressure of the air being trapped in Knockshinnoch, when they bored the hole the pressure came out and shoved the gas. We had to walk from the end of the haulage to the fresh air base; I reckon it would be around 500m on this big long level and it was full of blackdamp which of course on the Brigade men could go through it. Well when the pressure came through and it forced this gas back out, so everybody was scrambling to get out and that was when they said “Right from now on its only essential persons that will be down”. I met my Dad and it was him who said “They’re needing carriers “Aye what do you mean. The Brigades. Instead of the Brigade men putting on the proto apparatus, you carry it down and walk into the fresh air base  then you’ll give it to the Brigades man. So I became a carrier and I think it was Mauchline Brigade was the 1st one I went with. Oh aye it was well organised, the hutches was running up and down, they were about four or five hutches in a rake just running down with supplies or the brigades. The response was really good, as I said, that time with the gas; they were too many lying about. There were maybe about 20 or 30 people at the fresh air base, it wasn’t a panic bit we had to move. We eventually got back in because they put a fan in to shift the gas. I think carried for Jock Malcomson for Highhouse Brigade, I went down with Highhouse Brigade and I carried for Jock. I held him the apparatus and you were given an empty one to carry back out as the boys were tired. I think at that time they had made the hole through  and had made contact with the men, because Jock said he wrote Highhouse Brigade down on the shovel and shoved it through the hole  to let the men knew who it was and he said they were trying to pull him through! So when I came up there my father said “ Right you’ve got your work tonight – on you go home.” 

On the front-page of the Herald

I came home: dead tired and went to my work and that was on the Friday night. Anyway on the Saturday morning I came off my work and  made arrangements to go through to see the wife because we were making arrangements to get married on the 14th of October. Well I went to my bed and slept in and I missed the 1 o’clock bus through to Glasgow. I had to get the Kilmarnock bus and change at Kilmarnock and get a Glasgow bus. I’d actually fell asleep  on the Glasgow bus  and was wakened by this inspector. “Ticket please ticket please” and oh I was angry but I gave the man the ticket; I’ll always remember that. When I got in to the stance at Wellington St bus garage for the Balloch bus and as I went up the stair on the bus and I was sitting down and there were three young lassies up the back of me. “That’s been an awful disaster; luckily they’ve got through to the men. “Oh says I – Is that in the paper?” and she held the paper over to me and sure enough my photo… It’s me getting out the hutch at Bank No6. My daughters got it hanging on her office in Stranraer. I wrote to them and I got one and I’ve another photo upstairs of my father at Highhouse pit bottom standing with 8 or 9 men.  My dad had been sent home: he had been up there long enough and he told me everything that had happened. He was responsible for filling the Salvus, see the trouble was, well they knew when they got through there was 116 men and the trouble was how to get them through this 500 yards of blackdamp. So they had to send round all the Fire stations and get their Salvus and they had to train the men. They had to give the boys who were trapped a bit of training and also they had to work out a system how to get them out. Well it was my Dad that told me what they done, was they positioned a Brigade man about every 50 yards in the roads and as the Brigades went in… You see the apparatus works for about 2 ½ to 3 hours. I went into it from point A and relieved the man that was at point A, so when they were bringing the men out, I picked you up if I was a Brigades man and I went 50 yards and I held him over the next brigades man and I stood still til the next man and that’s how they worked it with that system. So that the Brigades were using up their 2 ½ hours and it worked well because my Dad says that everything went well. If I remember right they brought out the oldest man 1st.

The missing men

Wallace Anderson, I met Wallace Anderson and Wallace was a trapped man, In fact I think he was one of the youngest men trapped and they said they had a sing song and he remembers singing the Holy City. Then of course we found out later on, it was verified after that Knockshinnoch opened back up that there had been 13 men missing. They got eleven bodies quite quickly but they were two that they never got. I think it was Dalziel that was one of them. I heard stories that there were messages written on the girders and also that you had been working in Knockshinnoch  at the time of the disaster but you’d got out all right but you knew that you had left your piece bag hanging and when the man went back for his piece bag when it opened back up, he hadn’t eaten his piece but everything was away. Also they got the two bodies, the bodies of the two men in strange places. Did you hear that, I don’t know if there is any truth in that but maybe you can find that out? I knew that they got one of the bodies lying below the belt, where he had just laid down and died. I was sorry for the fact that if that had happened. It affected me that I was more aware of studying mine law and lecturing mine law. In fact I used to love talking and teaching mine law and I referred back to disasters, I used disasters and read them out and explained the things that happened. I think that I’ve got it right… They broke the law at Knockshinnoch with the fact that that hadn’t to approach the surface within a certain distance. We also heard that there were lines drawn on the plans which were wrong as you couldn’t approach within a certain distance of the surface or 12 times the thickness of the seam whatever was the greater; things like that.  I always admire every miner as down the pit we would have fought each other for an extra hutch but up the pit they were the best of pals especially when you were on a ton rate at the coal. You always made towards the boundary between the man next to you so that you could go a 1ft further and an extra hutch! Oh plenty of characters at the pit.