The Knockshinnoch Disaster
On the 5th August 2010 a massive roof fall trapped 33 Chilean miners at the San Jose copper mine near Copiapó in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Over the next 66 days a huge rescue operation was undertaken that drew media attention from all over the world. As the rescue attempt unfolded in South America, a small Scottish mining community commemorated the 60th anniversary of another heroic and remarkable mines rescue.
On Thursday 7th September 1950, an inrush of 60,000 tons of peat and moss engulfed the workings of Knockshinnoch Castle Colliery, New Cumnock, Ayrshire trapping 129 miners on the backshift. As word of the disaster spread round the local mining communities, hundreds of men, women and children gathered at the pithead anxiously waiting for news. Over the next 36 hours, a huge rescue operation was mounted involving hundreds of local miners and the Mines Rescue Brigade service. In the most difficult and dangerous circumstances and with time running out, 116 miners were led to safety through the old workings of the adjoining Bank No6 Pit. Despite a heroic effort by the volunteers in the mines rescue brigade, 13 men who were nearest to the site of the inrush couldn't be reached and their lives were lost.
To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the disaster on 7th September 2010, with funding provided by the Scottish Mining Institute of Scotland Trust, I interviewed some of the miners and their families who witnessed and survived the disaster for the Miners Voices website. The Knockshinnoch disaster is one of the most significant events in British coal mining history and made headline news all over the world in 1950; it was on the front page of the New York Times and replaced the Korean War in the headlines. Much has been written and produced about the disaster including the book “Black Avalanche” (Arthur and Mary Selwood - Frederick Muller 1960) and the film “The Brave Don’t Cry”(1952 Philip Leacock). But I wanted to bring something different to the story which has been told many times by many different people. When I worked at Barony Colliery I personally knew some of the men involved in the disaster and although some of them are in their 80’s, they can still remember it as if it happened yesterday.
Wullie Lopez was the training centre Deputy at Barony Colliery up until its closure in 1987 and was one of the miners who were trapped underground at Knockshinnoch. His is a remarkable story made all the more poignant by the loss of his father-in-law, William Lee, who was one of the 13 miners lost in the disaster. George Harvey was a Lecturer in Mining at Ayr Technical College for many years. He was a young miner at Highhouse Colliery, Auchinleck when the disaster happened and rode his bike 8 miles up to New Cumnock to volunteer. John Kilday was only 14 years old when the disaster trapped his older brother Sam and was alerted by his father who knew something was wrong at the colliery when the pit horn kept going. Jean McMurdo was nursing her baby son when word came through that there had been an incident at Knockshinnoch. Her husband John was one of the 113 trapped and he vowed never to go back down the pit again when he eventually got out 3 days after the ordeal began. Andrew McDickens worked at Killoch Colliery for 17 years after the closure of Knockshinnoch ten years after the disaster in 1967. One of the last men to be rescued, he had to lie down on the floor as the workings filled with noxious gases. Jimmy McCreadie was a 
Senior Oversman at Killoch Colliery and was in the Whitehill Mines Rescue Brigade up at the disaster. The 1st brigade inbye, he witnessed the conditions that the men were trapped in 1st hand and the remarkable selflessness of Davy Park who took off his apparatus to calm down the agitated younger men and who stayed to the very end being the last man out the mine. I have also published the special edition of the Coal Magazine which was published in Oct 1950 and the subsequent public enquiry in its entirety at www.minersvoices.co.uk. I'd like to thank Wullie Lopez, Jean McMurdo, Andrew McDickens, George Harvey, John Kilday and Jimmy McCreadie for their contribution to the Knockshinnoch Audio Project and the warm welcome and hospitality I received in their homes. It was a privilege to listen to their experiences and record their memories.
