Wullie Baillie

Early mining career at

Beoch, Maxwell and Fauldhead.

12th March and the last time we talked about it you had left the school and you were now going into the pit, back to the pit for a second time. What roughly would you say the date was : the beginning of June 1914?
I went straight down the pit and went with your father, there were no training. I drew hutches off of Sannie Devoy and I went out to the lye and got the empties, took them into the face and we filled them and we put our token on each one; our identification token. Then I drew them back out to the lye and there was a chap who put them onto the haulage rope and gave me another empty. Then I would go back in and I would maybe draw up to 12 – 14 depending how far in you were. You were going away all the time from the haulage. The height of the seam was only 32 inches, that was the height of the seam and you had to learn to work underneath that. They worked it what you call Longwall and you took a strip of maybe 30 or 40 feet wide underneath the stone work and then you blew down the stone work to make the road.
To take the coal out you would have to be working lying on your side?
After we took… we were restricted because I was only 14 year old, other drawers 15 and 16… you were counted a man at 16. You were allowed a certain amount of hutches, of tubs. The other fellow, 15, was allowed maybe one or two tubs more to draw and when you were 16 you got what you cry a Full Ben  he was counted the same as his father or his neighbour he was working with.  You worked underneath the coal, underneath the seam and then you pulled it down, you picked it down. You undercut the coal. While you were holing, as we talked about, you had to put in supports, small supports, Gibbs, small supports up to prevent the coal from falling as you were lying in beneath it! So you put up these small supports every six feet to support the coal while you were under all that.  It was our own places and we came back to that the next day, so we used to hole up along maybe after we had reached the number of tubs away we were supposed to get away. We holed that up and the next start stood on these till the next day we came out.  That coal was brought down the next day and pulled.  Now the stonework it was blown down and the stone work was blown down with gelignite. Gelignite was what they call, different from what they use nowadays, but in those days in the wintertime it was very hard and it was dangerous to work with it. It was even dangerous when you were using it; you had to watch what you were doing. When we were drawing out and in, our fathers gave us their gelignite and we would put the stalks of gelignite inside our shirts and down against our belts. And we drew our hutches in these low roads out and in with this gelignite bob, bob, bobbing off your tummy! And that was to soften them. Gelignite was safe , it was quite safe as long it wasn’t hard, it was quite safe in its natural state. The only thing that would put off gelignite in its natural state was a detonator. So you did that and you softened that if you were going to be blowing down stonework. It was only in stonework you were allowed to use it. Well we drew the hutches out and in that road with that gelignite bobbing off our tummy!  

It was a naked light mine

The roads were branched off, maybe a main road put in and various branches put off. I was pretty strong in those days, many a time, even before I was 16, I was drawing roads that some of the men were hardly fit to draw. And we used to put Spraggs in to hold the wheels and I mind once as a boy, I’d forgot my Snibble as we called them, the spragg, for sticking in the wheel and I left my tub at the top of this wee hill and I went away back into the face to get my spragg and when I came back out the Undermanager, The Manager and the Inspector were there and I got a lecture from the Inspector. I never forgot, he told me I should have put something in case something came out and struck that and injured somebody further down. I should have put something in front of that to prevent it from being knocked away. I’ve never forgot that, its stuck with me all my days. It was the Beoch Mine, it was a small mine, I don’t know how many men would have been in it.  It was one mine straight from the surface and they were roads going off it. It was only maybe 2 or 3 years old, it was just a new place. It was what they call a smiddy coal, all the coal from that particular seam went for smithy work, down to the smiddys and it was sent away to various places where they were using fires or furnaces. We used what we called teapots for lights, you burned oil with a wick in them and they were very smoky and very dirty. Maybe about a year after I had started they brought out a new one which they burned paraffin wax which was clearer light, a much better light. A wick maybe lasted you about a week but you always carried a spare wick with you  and it was all what we called naked light, the pit was all naked light, there was no gas in that particular pit. I should have said when I left school  I started going to the night classes , I went to eh night classes and later on I went to the mining classes. I didn’t need to go but I liked the school so I went back to night classes each winter. Well after after we’d been at Dalmellington, the 2nd Mrs Devoy, well she said before she was married once I was able to work for myself she would get rid of me. But at one time I was one of the mainstays of the house and I’d say that anyway. The money was going to her; she was getting the money.

Steep seams and heatings at

Maxwell Pit Dailly 1916

We left there and went to the pits at Dailly in 1916, the flitting was taken across by horse and lorry. The station lorry took it across through Straiton and they had a fresh pony in front for the heavy braes and it took a whole day to go down to Girvan and then they stayed overnight and came back the next day. I had bought a second hand bike for 10 shillings and I cycled down through Patna to Girvan. We went into the Rows and we got a new house in the Rows at Boughtreehall in Girvan, which had just been newly built. We started in the Maxwell Pit, now it was quite a difference as where I came from in the Beoch, there were fairly flat and level workings and we were able to draw the hutches out but in the Maxwell they were very steep workings, even up to as high as 60° The were very, very steep. The Maxwell was an exceptionally warm pit it was on fire in several places, in fact in all my career in mining that’s the only place that I saw a fire underground. One night on the backshift, they rang for us to come out and it was like into the heart of a furnace; the fire had broke out in an old road. It was extremely hot and we just wore a pair of wee pants. Water dripping from the roof burnt you went it struck your skin. Your piece, this was during the war, any jam or anything melted and run into your bread. Your tea, which we carried in tin flasks, you could take it out and leave it on the pavement and it was quite warm when you went to take it at break time. Several times fire broke out in the pit while I was there and then we left there and went down to the pit at Bargany. I was still working with Sannie Devoy out there and we drew off him by this time I was coming up to 18 and able to take, if he wasn’t out at his work for a day, I was able to take over and work myself by this time. The wages, I was getting what we call a half ****?  I was getting wages the same as him. This went on for some time and then I fell out with him one day and I left him with a stranger and from there I worked with strangers all the time I was in that particular pit. I tried various jobs to get experience and for the by I was attending the mining classes during this period and I travelled from Girvan to Ayr, to the academy at Ayr on a Saturday afternoon and then we went from there when they transferred us all to Kilmarnock. So we had to travel from Girvan to Kilmarnock to the classes. The classes didn’t finish til 9o’clock at night and the last train leaving Ayr was at 9! So the education people put on a minibus for us and run us, it was an old tin Ford, and run us to get the train at Ayr station at 9 o’clock. We missed it several times or once or twice we got it  further on at Kilkerren station but once or twice it had to run us right to Girvan from Kilmarnock.

Meeting my wife in 1919

If you say you’re getting on about 18, had you met my mother by this time? 

Aye well… I ran with three or four lads and you mother run with three or four girls; we knew them all of course. Your mother worked in the bakery and she got a finger trapped in a machine on the 3rd of January 1919 and I always told her after words when she got back from the hospital, I always told her that I took pity on her, we were both only 18 years old and from there I went with your mother up until we were married in 1922; I went with  her for 3 ½ years. By this time Sannie Devoy, Mrs Devoy had twin girls and one of them died on Armistice day in November 1918; she died the day Armistice was signed. Later on, about May 1919 Sanny Devoy died of pneumonia and from there I paid the rent and kept Mrs Devoy up until I was 20. She got my wages every week and I got ten shillings pocket money. But we fell out about it at the finish and I left and went into digs. After I left, I still paid the rent and I went down every Christmas and I always gave the children Christmas presents. I still paid her rent up until I left Girvan in 1924, after I was married. We were married in 1922 and I was still attending the mining classes and then I chucked it for a while and got fed up. I sat an exam in Girvan police station for Glasgow Police and passed to join Glasgow Police but they weren’t looking for married men they were looking for single men. I was still working out at the pits and I thought that I would like to shift.

Kirkconnel 1924

In 1919 I went with the Girvan team to Kirkconnel with the local junior football team and that’s when I met my real mother for the 1st time. Somebody came down to me at the football field and said that somebody would like to meet you. I knew at this time that I was adopted, after he died I got my birth papers and I then knew what my name was and I changed over to own name. Instead of William Devoy I changed it over to Wullie Baillie. This particular chap he was from Dailly and my mother came from Dailly originally and he knew the story about me being adopted and so he introduced me to uncle Rab at the football field and he took me down and that’s when I met my mother for the 1st time.  When we were staying with old Mrs Devoy before Sannie Devoy married the 2nd time, just about 1911 there was a lad came up from Ayr and he stayed with a William Baillie just round the corner form us and he was my twin brother and I didn’t know that! But he was the 1st to tell me that actually we were twins and he had run away from parents that he was staying with in Ayr.  This was him up to stay with his uncle and that was the 1st time I’d heard that I’d been adopted.
Why did you move to Kirkconnel ? Where was I born?  
You were born in Hill view in Girvan, it was a miners hut. They were wooden, they were just built, they were actually Army huts which had been turned into houses. My 1st house, I should have said when we were married 1st you mother and I; we stayed with a brother of your grandfathers, brother Archie. We had a kitchen off them and a wee kitchenette, we stayed there for several months and then I got one of these army huts, which were built by the colliery company and you were born and Betty was born there. It was 3 Hillview. You were born in 1923 in that house and I was still working at the pit. Things weren’t doing too well and I thought I would like to go to Kirkconnel by this time, were there maybe be better work. The work just wasn’t too good; the wages were only about 8 shillings a day then in the pit.  In November 1924 I left and went up to Kirkconnel and stayed with my mother and got a job at the pit at Fauldhead.  Betty wasn’t born then, your mother was expecting, so we waited and kept the house on till Betty was born in December 1924. You were allowed to stay 6 weeks in the house they couldn’t put  you out for 6 weeks. So before Betty was 6 weeks old, we stored our furniture in Girvan and your mother and Betty and you came up to Kirkconnel  and we stayed with your granny Baillie in Kirkconnel. We travelled by train; it was all train in those days. We had to travel up from Ayr to Mauchline and Mauchline back to Kirkconnel. My flitting, when it came. Came in a van from the railway. Buses only started running, 1st bus service from Ayr started running, the Ayr and District, about 1922; the year I was married. That was the 1st buses. There were no buses before that. We stayed with the Granny for about 6 months.

The Mining Classes

I had turned 25 and I was still attending the mining classes. I went back to the Mining Classes and I went to Cumnock Academy. Then from Cumnock Academy I went to Kilmarnock academy on the Saturday afternoon but I had sat for my deputies and had my deputies’ papers. When I turned 25 about a month afterwords, the management asked me if I would take over a Deputies job in Fauldhead. I was making fairly good wages too, when I say good wages, I’d be making roughly a pound a day, which was big money in those days. I went to become a Deputy for 9 and 6 a day. The idea was that I had to get experience, management experience if I wanted to go on. I took a drop of wages from £1 a day to  9 shillings and 6 pence. I’d be making anything up to £5 -£6 a week and I dropped back to 9 and 6 a shift. I took the deputys job at Fauldhead and they flung me in at the deep end! The 1st section I got was 60 men! With me attending the mining classes I was pretty handy and pretty well up on things. I kept going to the classes then I think it fell through for a wee while. Then the 1926 strike came… I was still a deputy and there was nothing coming and your mother was allowed 12 and 6 a week from the Parish Relief; that was all that came into the house. I had saved a pound or two and we had shares in the Co-Operative. The Co-Op allowed us to get so many messages per week and your Grannie Baillie helped us out occasionally with giving us some money to help us out.  We were out on strike of 30 weeks. In the second week of the strike, Jimmy Brown the miners agent who later become MP, came down the second week and told us to hold-on boys-  you’re winning! I haven’t even mind what we were out on strike for but we went back in the same way we came out.  I started up the mining classes again  and went to Kilmarnock. As a deputy I had to get up in the morning 2 hours before the start of the shift. The shift started at 7am in the morning  and I had to be down the pit  at 5 am. So we had to walk then, so I had to walk to the pit. I had to rise at 4am. Go down the pit at 5am and examine all the places where my men where and then be back at the station and meet the shift coming on and I would give them all their instructions to get them onto their jobs before 7 o’clock. On a Saturday the pit started an hour earlier which meant that I had to be down the pit at 4 o’clock in the morning! I had to rise at 3am! The shift started at 6am. I came up the pit, there were no pit baths in those days, came home, washed and then got the train from Kirkconnel to Kilmarnock at 12 o’clock. Went to Kilmarnock and started classes at 2 o’clock at Kilmarnock tech. We stopped at 5 for a cup of tea and a pie.  Then we went on till 9 o’clock and then went up to the station and it was 10 before I got back home.  That’s all we had to eat from when we left- a cup of tea and a pie. Now in those days I was still a deputy, wages were very, very low and we couldn’t afford much and our rent come off of it.  Many a time I went to Kilmarnock and it was ½ a crown and 2 and 6 for my railway fare. I had sixpence for a cup of tea and a pie and I had a penny left and that penny had to come back home. I used to buy the girls dresses at Kilmarnock because you could buy them cheaper there.

Pit managers exam in Edinburgh 1929

I stopped being a Deputy because wages… what had happened in the late 1920’s, wages were still only 9 and 6 a shift and work came in bad  and we were only working maybe 3 shifts. 3 shifts at 9 and 6 a shift was only 28 and 6. Rent come off of that and I had to pay my fare to Kilmarnock and that had to come off of that too.  So I could earn better money at the coal, so I gave up my Deputy’s job and they wouldn’t let me come off it at 1st and I threatened not to go back! And I got a job at the coal where I could earn better money. I was still attending the classes and I went through to Edinburgh to sit my Under-managers papers, I was the only one from Ayrshire who was up at that particular time and I managed to pass my Under-managers in November 1929.  I went up in 1930, the following year and I sat for my manager’s papers and there was 28 sat them from Scotland. There was 13 from Ayrshire, who all together went up. 4 or 5 for the managers and the rest were Under-managers. There was only one lad passed his Under-managers out of that lot and I was the only manager, the only one to pass my managers papers at that exam. There were 28 for the whole of Scotland sat, there were quite a lot of pits in Scotland at that time and there was only 4 passed out the 28 and I was one of them. By that time I was back as a deputy. The management weren’t’ too… maybe they were jealous or not… it was the Wilsons’. Archie Wilson senior was the  general manager and Archie Wilson junior was the manager of Fauldhead Colliery. Willie McNaught who was married on Archie Wilson’s daughter was manager at Gateside Colliery. There were only the two pits in those days and the pits were privately owned by the McConnels. The McConnels were pit owners but they didn’t know the 1st thing about pits, so the Wilsons run the whole thing themselves and they were the Kingpins in the district. They owned the picture house in the district, they owned the only lodging house in the district, and they owned the pubs! And they had a couple of farms, they seem to own everything round about. So when I was going to go to sit for my managers papers, I was supposed to do a survey underground on my own. I went and I saw the manager and I asked to do the section where I was in; I was working at the coal then. I asked to do the section and get permission to go underground and do a survey. Because we were supposed to do our own survey underground and then put it onto paper and make a plan of it. I went to the manager 6 weeks before I was due to go to Edinburgh and he kept putting me off and putting me off. A week before the exam I still hadn’t got down to do my survey and I was beginning to get worried. I knew the head surveyor at the company who was at the Sanqhuar office and I spoke to him about it and he said I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll give you the readings of your section you’re in. I’ll give you all the plotting’s of the section and you do it and make out your own plan. So I had to take a plan to Edinburgh, so I made out my own plan from that and took it to Edinburgh. I had to show it to the examiners but it was me that had done it. But it was quite common in those days for other people to make out the plans.  They kept me running and they didn’t even help. They didn’t even give me concessions of any kind.

All steam in those days

I had to go up to the colliery at night  and ask round about to try and find out about the boilers and different things, because all the questions were asked… it was all steam in those days. Fauldhead generated its own electricity; it generated electricity for Fauldhead and Gateside collierys. The people were very good and they showed me round about. That all came in for the exam, well the Wilsons wouldn’t help and at that time I had been… When I went for my Under-managers I had to have my 1st aid certificate and I had a 1st aid certificate but unfortunately it didn’t suit. I had a 1st aid certificate way back about 1922 ; I needed a 1st aid certificate when I sat my deputies in 1922. You can hold your certificate but cannot by law become a Deputy until you were 25. So I had my deputies certificate and I had to have a 1st aid certificate, so I had my 1st aid certificate and I sat that as Wullie Devoy. I decided I would need a new certificate, so in 1928-29 I went  to a 1st aid class at Kirkconnel simply to get my 1st aid certificate to allow me to sit my Under-managers. Dr Edgar who I knew, began to take an interest in me and he saw the potential and he asked me if I would go with the team; they were starting up a team then.  That was the Fauldhead 1st aid team. So I went into the team and I think I was no1 in the team, we had a Captain, an English chap, who was captain and we went up and became 2nd in competition for all Ayrshire and Dumfries. We got beat by a wee chap Dunlop from Auchincruive who had lifted it for years this cup; The RL Angus cup. It was RL Angus the colliery people who presented it.  So Thomas left that district and went away and Edgar asked me to become Captain of the 1st aid team and we began to go out to various competitions, plus by the by, I was doing my mining. I was attending the mining classes and I trained a ladies team which won the Dumfries Cup. I was getting at the time my jaws were beginning to clap one and another just with pure overwork. However as I said I was doing all that at the time then the following year we went up and won the RL Angus cup. By this time Edgar was still pushing as and we went up to Glasgow and we won the Scottish Junior Cup when I was Captain.  We won the RL Angus cup until I left Fauldhead in 1931. I was captain of the team that year and we won it and later on we won the RL Angus cup again.  I went up to the exam and the results came through, the manager heard about the results but never even congratulated me, he never even said we’d been up.  When I got my managers they never even said or congratulated me when I went through. I was working at the coal then, I was still working away and been Captain of the team, Dr Edgar was a afraid he was going to lose me. So Edgar was always coming over to the house and seeing if I’d had any word on anything as he was afraid I would go away! 

Archie Wilson - Manager at Fauldhead

I’d been a visit to Barony at one time and I had met the General Manager of the Barony at the time; Hugh Murray. He and I had got into a bit of an argument underground that day and he seemed to be taken on with me. He sent word down with your Uncle Hugh that he would like to have a talk with me would I come up on Tuesday night and see him. He stayed down Barony road in Auchinleck, he was in charge of the pits at Muirkirk, Whitehill, Highhouse and Barony. So your uncle Hugh came down and said he would link up. So we were out a walk down the road and Dr Edgar as usual was passing in his car, so he drew up and blethered away and said “Have you heard anything yet Wullie?” Well says I – “This is my brother and he’s brought word that I’ve to go up to Auchinleck and that Mr Murray wants to see me. I don’t know whether it’s got something to offer or what’s what. But he would like to have a talk with me”. So Edgar of course was quite upset he thought here he’s going to lose the Captain of his team.  So away he went and your Uncle Hugh and I weren’t long home when Dr Edgars car draws up at the door. He said “I’ve been up seeing young Archie, (that was the manager) and he said you’ve to go up right away and see him. So that was on the Saturday night at about 5 o’clock. So I went up to see young Archie, he stayed in Fauldhead House. He took me out to his greenhouse and we had quite a talk. He was a Colonel in the Army, well in the territorials, he had quite a military style; he had been a Captain in the 1st World war. He said “Well Baillie, any prospect’s of anything?” and I knew that Edgar had been up and given him all the gen. So I said that Murray had sent for me and that I had to go up and see him Tuesday night at Auchinleck. He said “ Well I don’t know what you could do” I said Mr Wilson “You should know what I can do, I was deputy here for several years. He said “I’m prepared to give you an Oversmans job, that’s the next step up in charge of a particular section, it’s above a Deputies; it’s in charge of deputies. Im prepared to give you an Oversmans job, it’ll not ne in this pit but the other pit No3 pit. I can’t get any buggers to do as I tell them he said “It’ll be £3.15 a week on one condition – that you don’t go and see Murray.  Well it was like a red rag to a bull! Oh I would never stand for the likes of that. I said “Mr Wilson, I’m going up to see Murray as he’s been the 1st to ask. I’ve been here I think six weeks after I got word and nobody has asked or offered me anything here. Murray is the 1st to ask me and I promised to go up and I’m going up to see him. If the job is off here then I’ll just have to get something elsewhere. But I’m not accepting your job under these conditions.

Interview at Barony 1931

So we left at that and I went home, I had my mind made up right because over and above that I had seen one or two under officials who had been mismanaged and they didn’t get on to well.  I thought if they get me here they might pin me down and I’ll not get on. So I went away back home and Sunday morning a boy comes to the door at back of breakfast about 9 o’clock. You’ve to go up young Archie wants to see you. So when I was in seeing young Archie at the night before, he had quite a good dram in him ! He said I’ve been thinking over Baillie what I said yesterday and I think it’s not fair, you go and see Murray and come back and tell me what he’s got to offer you. Well I had my mind made up I was going to see Murray but I wasn’t going to stay at Fauldhead. So I went up and I saw Murray on the  Tuesday and we had quite a talk, along talk. He said I was greatly taken on with you and he said quite truthfully, I spoke to Mr Logan about you (He was the General Manager) and I’ve got nothing to offer you! I’ve no jobs to offer. Well I came out clean and I told him what had happened and I gave him the whole story of Wilsons. Now Murray and the Wilsons did not get on because Murray had worked at Tower mine at Gateside under the Wilsons as an Oversman and they didn’t get on together. So Murray says I’m awful sorry but I’ll speak to Mr Logan again.  So I came back home and there was no word until a fortnight after. I didn’t go back to see Wilson the manager, I’d made up my mind that I wasn’t going back. He never asked me or never spoke to me to see how I’d got on and I didn’t go back to tell him. A fortnight afterword’s I got word from Murray to come up and see him and I went up and saw Murray and whether it was the old Coal Board thing or not, he said  We’re prepared to offer you an Oversmans job. The same job in Barony No1 and that was in 1931; An Oversman job at Barony on £3.10 a week.  They knew I had been offered that so they were trying it. So I said alright and I accepted it. Well he said you can start by certain time well I said look here I’ll work a weeks’ notice where I am. So I handed in my notice and I still never went near the manager nor did I ever tell Wilson. Edgar was up in arms of course; he lost his captain. We had some good 1st aid men there. Barony… they were quite keen to get me because they had Barony teams and they wanted a 1st aid team. The manager was keen on a 1st aid team and they were all keen in getting a 1st aid team; they had one going there but they had no inclination.  So I went to Barony and I started in No1 Barony on the dayshift and they showed me round about the pit first.