Wullie Baillie
In Those Days
In 2006 at a meeting of the Barony Trust in Auchinleck, I met Bill Baillie of Cumnock who was a well-known PE teacher at Cumnock Academy in the 1970‘s. Bill held me an old audio tape of an interview he conducted with his father, Wullie Baillie, who was NCB area manager of the New Cumnock and Sanquhar collieries in the 1960’s. Part 1 of the interview is a remarkable story about growing up in pre-1st world war Dalmellington and the small mining communities that once flourished in the hills above the Doon Valley in Ayrshire. Burnfoothill, Lethanhill and the Peesweep Row were all abandoned in the 1950’s with miners being moved to the new housing schemes in Bellsbank and Patna. Mr Baillie recalls the Flower shows held every summer at the rows, collecting the wages tin at the pit, his early school days, fishing at Loch Doon and Sunday School trips on the train to Ayr. In the 2nd part of the interview Mr Baillie talks about being a 14 year old miner at Beoch mine, working to his step-father drawing hutches from a 32 inch Coalface and getting a lecture from a Mines Inspector. He moved from Dalmellington to the miners huts at Hill View, Girvan and worked at the Maxwell Colliery in Dailly from 1916- 1924 where he graphically describes the steep workings and underground fires that were a regular occurrence in that part of the Ayrshire Coalfield. As a future senior colliery official, Mr Baillie attended the mining classes at Ayr and Kilmarnock Technical Colleges and moved to Kirkconnel to work at Fauldhead Colliery in 1924. At 25, he became a Deputy and passed his 1st class certificate (Managers Papers) in 1930 at Edinburgh. A keen first aider, he captained the Fauldhead 1st aid team that won the prestigious RL Angus cup in 1930. In 1931 he moved to the Barony Colliery Auchinleck to become an oversman and in part three of the interview Mr Baillie talks about the conditions at Barony, the Blind Pit and working waist deep in water. He also recalls an accident where he broke his arm at the coal face. After working at the Barony Colliery for a couple of years, Mr Baillie went to Kirkstyle Colliery in Hurlford near Kilmarnock where he was appointed Undermanager in charge of the pit. Not long after he started at the pit he was involved in a serious accident and broke his neck while working underground. He chronicles the long road to recovery from his injury and his return to work to Kirkstyle in 1934.
