Collier Tracks

COLLIER TRACKS
Tracking Scottish miners, their songs and their stories

Collier Tracks was an arts project, organised by writer and organiser Ewan McVicar with administrator Iyaah Warren and singer Siobhan Miller.

As its first venture, Collier Tracks created 'Bonny Collier Lads & Lassies', a two performer touring music and story show founded on Scots miners’ songs and stories in Scotland and Cape Breton, with a particular focus on the life and songs of miner’s wife Mrs Annie Cosgrove of Newtongrange and of miner Hughie Reynolds of Plean. Both Annie Cosgrove and Hughie Reynolds were born in Blantyre. Hughie was a miner and community activist in Plean from 1902 to the 1970s. Annie’s husband was a miner in Hamilton, Whitburn and Newtongrange, and in Glace Bay in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in the 1920s, returning to Scotland in the early 1930s.
Traditional song was central in both their lives. Annie’s songs were recorded by Alan Lomax in 1953 and Hamish Henderson in 1958. Ewan McVicar learned of her through the Alan Lomax Archives, and is researching her life and family in Scotland and Nova Scotia. Hughie Reynolds was Ewan’s maternal grandfather, and a noted social singer of traditional Scottish songs.
The show is founded on specific towns of the coalmining communities of Scotland - Blantyre, Newtongrange and Plean. Performances in these three communities, [in David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre, in Newtongrange's National Coalmining Museum, and in Plean Community Centre], celebrated aspects of each community, so that the performance emphasised local culture and history, and included local miners’ songs and poetry and the participation as guests of local singers and writers.
We workedg to augment the core effect of the show through schools and community oral history collection, associated exhibitions, and this website on the topic that complements existing websites, and a schools teaching pack.
Collier Tracks aims to continue taking performance and linked work to other Scottish coalmining communities - in the initial three local authority areas of Midlothian, South Lanarkshire and Stirling, but also to West Lothian, Fife, Ayrshire and Falkirk.
An important secondary aim of Collier Tracks, through the impetus of the initial show then by ongoing developmental work, is to develop awareness of and interest in this little known social and cultural connection between Lowland Scotland and Nova Scotia. The Gaelic cultural connections are now well-known and developed, but not the non-Gael connections. Collier Tracks hopes to eventually engender active cultural and social links between mining communities here and in Cape Breton. The Cape Breton coalmining communities initially focussed on are Glace Bay and Inverness NS, which both have miners’ museums and active interest in local history.
Developing awareness within Scottish mining communities and the wider public of the richness of our miners’ songs and unique cultural heritage.
All three members of Collier Tracks are strongly committed to high artistic standards allied to community relevance and active participation in the arts, and the artistic track records of Ewan McVicar and Siobhan Miller demonstrate their achievements and sense of integrity.
In addition to the aims given above, the three target communities and key groupings within them have had an active experience of identification with and involvement in a celebration of their cultural heritage, and the website and teaching materials are an ongoing resource.

WHO WE ARE PAGE

Collier Tracks is a collaboration by three people:
Singer, storyteller and writer Ewan McVicar;
Singer Siobhan Miller;
Organiser and singer Iyaah Warren.

Ewan McVicar (singer, writer, storyteller, songmaker) is from Inverness. He has sung and told stories in festivals, concerts and educational settings throughout Scotland and in six other countries over the last 50 years. He has written a dozen books, mostly on aspects of Scotland’s traditional song, and delivered many performance, creative writing and songmaking projects, and been an SAC Writer In Residence. He is one of Scotland’s best-known storytellers.

Siobhan Miller (vocal, piano, dance) is from Penicuik. She first appeared at the TMSA’s Auchtermuchty Festival when only 13 years old and won both the children’s and women’s singing competitions there. In 2007 she was nominated by the RSAMD to receive the silver medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians. Siobhan has appeared as a solo singer at several festivals including Glasgow’s Celtic Connections, Gigha Music Festival and with The Royal Scottish Country Dance Society at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She has played support to and as a guest singer with various musicians and groups. Siobhan’s performances focus strongly on communicating through traditional, contemporary and self-penned song.

Iyaah Warren’s field of expertise is the development of community and voluntary organisations, community participation, and active citizenship. With a wealth of experience as a development worker in the voluntary sector, Iyaah offers practical consultancy and flexible freelance support to assist committees, staff, and local authorities to develop the potential of community and voluntary organisations, particularly through times of change and growth. She is also a member of the acappella group The Linties, who have performed in many Scottish traditional song settings.

Scots Coalmining Songs Page

We begin with short extracts from coalmining songs, to whet your interest. You will find the full texts of many of them further down this page. The bracketed [#] letters show where they were found.

From Broadside Ballad collections [a]
Recordings from archives : Alan Lomax Archive [b ] / School Of Scottish Studies [c]
From Other Recordings : Billy Stewart [d] / West Lothian Council [e] / New Makars Trust [f] /Ewan McVicar [g]

1] It’s Me That Keeps Yer Fire Gaun [b]
It’s me that gives ye light
Ma face it may be dirty but ma hert is warm an true

SONGS OF LOVE

2] The Collier Laddie [g]
Collected by Robert Burns
Ah’ve traivelled east an ah’ve traivelled west
An ah hae been tae Kirkcaldy
But the bonniest lass that ere ah saw
She wis following a collier laddie

3] The Collier Lad
Collected in 1999 by Phyllis Martin from 87 year old Agnes Mclean, miner’s daughter, at Kirkconnel. On her own self-issued CD.
A collier lad he’s my delight
He comforts me baith day and night
And though he’s black his money’s white
And ah dearly lo’e the collier o

Other love songs include
4] Handloom Spinner [g]
I fell in love wi a collier lad
My father slighted him and his, and
I went to live down in the Colliers’ Row

5] The Collier Has a Dauchter [Burns]
And oh she’s wonder bonny
A laird he was that sought her

6] When She Come Ben She Bobbit Fu Law [Burns]
An was na Cockpen right saucy an aa
Kissin a collier lassie an aa

7] My Love Is But a Miner Lad [c]
He works below the ground
And for his good behaviour his equal can’t be found

8] The Pitman’s Union [a]
Your pardon is granted, young collier, she replies
But do you belong to the brave union boys?

SONGS ABOUT DISASTERS

9] The Blantyre Explosion [b]
By Clyde’s bonny banks as I sadly did wander
Amang the pit heaps, as evening drew nigh
I spied a fair maiden all dressed in deep mourning
A weeping and wailing, with many a sigh
22nd October 1877 over two hundred miners killed at Dixon’s Colliery, High Blantyre, near Hamilton. 1953 singer Annie Cosgrove said she learned the song from from a relative of the girl who was to have married Johnny. A relative of Mrs Cosgrove’s husband was also killed in the explosion.

10] Collier Sweetheart [g]
Plean Disaster, 1922. Written by Ewan McVicar with class P5 in East Plean Primary, where the miners would have been pupils.
My mother said I could not have a collier
If I did it would break her heart
I didn’t care what my mother told me
I had a collier for my sweetheart

11] The Auchengiech Disaster
Words Norman Buchan, tune Skipping Barfit Through The Heather
In Auchengeich there stands a pit
The wheel above, it isna turnin
For on a grey September morn
The flames o Hell below were burnin

Other Scottish songs about mining disasters include
12] The Donibristle Moss Moran Disaster, Fife 1901[c]
On the 26th of August our fatal moss gave way
Although we did our level best, its course we could not stay

13] The Starlaw Disaster 1870 [c]
96 men and boys to their work to they did go
Never dreaming how many would lie low

14] The Fatal Coalpit Explosion At Nitshill [a]
But sad to relate about five that same mornin
A dreadful explosion was heard through the air

15] Explosion At The Lindsay Colliery [f]
On the east side of Keltie by the road to the ferry
Genenerations of Fifers found gainful employment

SONGS ABOUT MINING WORK

16] The Model Village Plean, 1926 Strike [g]
They’re going to build a prison wall
Round the Model Village Plean

17] Six Jolly Wee Miner Lads [b]
We’ve travelled eat, we’ve travelled west
This country round and round
For to find out the treasures
That lie below the ground

18] Ga’s Song [g]
Part of the story of Ewan McVicar's grandfather, Hugh Reynolds of Plean, in his own words.
When ah was a laddy o twelve year auld
In the year of Nineteen Ocht Two
Ma father hurt his back in a fall in the pit
And ma mither said "It's work time for you"
So ma mither changed the date on ma birth certificate
So's ah could leave the school, free and clear
And ah never knew she'd done it till ah went tae draw ma pension
And they made me work another year

19] Winter Sun [f]
By Gill Bowman
Girlhood days are done
Now she’ll never see the summer rain till it’s running underground

20] The Red Bings Of West Lothian [e]
By Gill Bowman with a Winchburgh Primary class
They sink the shaft and shift the soil
Fill the hutches, spill the spoil

21] It’s Fine Tae Keep In Wi The Gaffer
By Joe Corrie, Fife miner, poet & playwright
For mony a year I ha’e worked doon alow,
But never in pits that are wet or are low,
For I mak’ it my business wherever I go,
Aye tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.
Oh! it’s fine tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.

22] Coorie Doon
By Matt McGinn
Yer faither coories doon, ma darling
Doon in the Corbie Main
So ye main corrie doon, ma darling
Coorie doon an dream

Older songs about Mining Work include
23] The Colliers’ Eight Hour Day [a]
Now all you jolly collier lads, come listen unto me
You know how we are sore oppressed by masters’ tyranny

24] Down In A Coal Mine [a]
Where a gleam of sunshine never can be found
Digging dusty diamneds all the season round

25] The Truckmasters [a]
I wonder what’s the reason he does not stop
The infamous system of a truck shop

Newer songs [within last 20 years] about Mining Life include
26] Canny Miner Lad
It’s up in the mornin an oot afore dawn
Wi yer moleskin breeks an yer pitboots on

27] The Washing Rake [g]
When you work at the washing rake
Picking out stones while your fingernails break

28] The Garriongill [d]
and many more by Billy Stewart
We stand in the cage as we’re lowered down the shaft
We’re miners together with the crack and a laugh

29] Still The Fight Goes On [g]
And soon I wis a woman wi wages of ma ain
Workin at the pithead, pushin wagons fu o stanes

FULL SONG LYRICS

The best-known song of Scottish coalmining is The Blantyre Explosion.

The Blantyre Explosion
A tragic song of a young man killed in the coal pit and a young girl left lamenting.

By Clyde’s bonny banks as I sadly did wander,
Amang the pit heaps, as evening drew nigh,
I spied a fair maiden all dressed in deep mourning,
A weeping and wailing, with many a sigh.

I stepped up beside her, and thus I addressed her,
“Pray tell me, fair maid, of your trouble and pain.”
Sobbing and sighing, at last she did answer.
“Johnny Murphy, kind sir, was my true lover’s name.

“Twenty one years of age, full of youth and good looking,
To work down the mines of High Blantyre he came.
The wedding was fixed, all the guests were invited,
That calm summer’s evening young Johnny was slain.

“The explosion was heard, all the women and children
With pale anxious face made haste to the mine.
The news was made known, the hills rang with their mourning.
Two hundred and ten young miners were slain.

“Now children and wives, and sweethearts and parents,
That Blantyre explosion they’ll never forget.
And all you young miners who hear my sad story,
Shed a tear for the victims who’re laid to their rest."

On the 22nd October 1877 over two hundred miners were killed in a disaster at Dixon’s Colliery, High Blantyre, near Hamilton. This song was made about the tragedy. There is an annual march in Blantyre to commemorate the disaster.
There are other Scottish songs about mining disasters. ‘The Donibristle Moss Moran Disaster’ happened in Fife in 1901, and ‘The Auchengeich Disaster’ which happened as recently as 1957 near Stepps on the outskirts of Glasgow, were also commemorated in song.
The Irish name of the girl’s ‘true lover’ in ‘The Blantyre Explosion’ is not surprising. Many Irishmen came over to Scotland in the 19th Century to work in the pits and to dig the canals, and stayed to marry and raise families. The singer Annie Cosgrove sang a different name for the lost love, Johnny MacPhee, and said she learned the song from from a relative of the girl who was to have married Johnny. A relative of Mrs Cosgrove’s husband was also killed in the explosion.

The Collier Lad
Collected by Stravaig member Phyllis Martin from 87 year old Agnes Mclean, a miner’s daughter, at Kirkconnel.

O the collier lad he’s my delight
He comforts me baith day and night
And though he’s black his money’s white
And ah dearly lo’e the collier o

O ma mither sent me tae the well
Tae get some water for ma tea
Ah tripped on a stane an doon ah fell
And a collier lad cam coortin me

O ah wish ah was a coillier’s wife
Then ah would live a happy life
A happy live as a collier’s wife
And a lang lie in the mornin o

Ma mither warned me awfu weel
A wee wee bag would haud ma meal
And we’d aa gae mairchin tae the deil
The day ah merrit a collier o

O the collier lad he’s my delight
He comforts me baith day and night
And though oor money’s aye been tight
Ah dearly lo’e ma collier o

IT’S FINE TAE KEEP IN WI’ THE GAFFER

By Joe Corrie

For mony a year I ha’e worked doon alow,
But never in pits that are wet or are low,
For I mak’ it my business wherever I go,
Aye tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.
Oh! it’s fine tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.

I wasna’ lang started till plain I could see
That some had it easy, as easy could be;
So I tocht tae mysel’ that the best thing for me
Was tae try and keep in wi’ the gaffer.
Oh! it’s fine tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.

My boss at the time was Mason, ye ken,
So I went tae the bank for my seven pounds ten,
And bravely I bearded the goat in its den,
A’ tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.
Oh! it’s fine tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.

The next ane tae come was a musical hand,
He stood in the middle and waggled the wand;
So I learned the cornet and played in his band,
A’ tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.
Oh! it’s fine tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.

The next was a cratur o’ different stamp,
A high heid cadet in the Salvation camp;
So I got him tae save me and carried the lamp,
A’ tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.
Oh! it’s fine tae keep in wi’ the gaffer.

Collier Sweetheart

Ewan McVicar was asked to write songs with class P5 in East Plean Primary near Stirling. Ewan’s mother was born in Plean, and he remembered that his grandfather, Hugh Reynolds, had told him about being in a mining disaster. Ewan's grandfather had heard the sound of the 1921 explosion where he was hewing (cutting coal) in the next-door pit. Ewan looked up old newspapers to get details of what happened. Then he and P5 wrote this song.

My mother said I could not have a collier
If I did it would break her heart
I didn’t care what my mother told me
I had a collier for my sweetheart

But one day up Cadger’s Loan
The siren screamed at Pit Four head
All of Plean ran to find out
How many living, how many dead?

Lowsing time in the Carbrook Dook
The young shotfirer fired his shot
Dynamite blew up the section
Twelve lads dead, seventy caught

Their holiday bags were lying waiting
The men were lying down below
The wee canaries they died too
Salty tears in the sad Red Rows

The young shotfirer had no certificate
My young collier gave his life
Fate was cruel to my sweetheart
And I will never be a wife

My mother said I could not have a collier
If I did it would break her heart
I didn’t care what my mother told me
I had a collier for my sweetheart

Performed by Ewan McVicar, vocal, guitar, mouthorgans on Scotland's Songs' website.

A collier is a coal miner. Cadger’s Loan ran from Plean village up the hill to where the coal pits were. The Loan has been renamed President Kennedy Avenue.
The shotfirer is the man who bores a hole, packs it with dynamite, then fires the dynamite to open up a new area of rock for the miners to get the coal from.
The men expected to come up after their shift and collect their holiday bags for their annual two weeks holiday from work. The miners lived in streets called the Red Rows because they were built of red brick.
The first verse is from a traditional song about a girl who wants to marry a coal miner. The tune is sometimes called ‘Willie Taylor’. Written for a Stirling Tolbooth project.

The following two lyrics are from a 1995 show by Ewan McVicar about the history of Motherwell

THE LITTLE COLLIER
I'm a handloom spinner, and my tale is sad
I fell in love with a collier lad
My father slighted him and his, and so
I went to live down in the Collier's Row

I filled the basket to a hundredweight
Climbed the ladders, faced my fate
Wore the harness and pulled the cart
Up the wagon way, with heavy heart

My mother tore her hair and rung her hands
She cried aloud to hear the wedding banns
But still she helped me when my time had come
And I brought forth my little collier son

My little collier, born to be a slave
To wear his master's collar and be brave
To delve below the ground all alone
And listen every day for falling stone.

THE WASHING RAKE
When you work at the washing rake
Picking out stones while your fingernails break
Your hair gets grubby and your muscles ache
Working at the washing rake

Looking for rocks as the coal rolls by
Stone in your heart, grit in your eye
Boiler man, for pity's sake
Slow down the washing rake

Take take take me away
Over the hills and far off
Take take take me to where
I can't hear old miners cough

Up at the big house, I've been told
Are fine young ladies decked in gold
Dining on tea and cake
Not like here at the washing rake

Broken old miners, cheeky young boys
Noise and dirt, dirt and noise
God have pity, come and take me
Far away from the washing rake.

Take take take me away
Over the hills and far off
Take take take me to where
I can't hear old miners cough

Canny Miner Lad
(Ian Campbell)

It's up in the morning and out afore dawn
Wi' your moleskin breeks and your pitboots on
And the sleep in your eyes from the night just gone
He's a fine lad, a canny lad, the miner

It's out of the frost and up through the toon,
Wi' your breath like smoke in the morning gloom,
And you meet wi' your mates at the pithead soon,
He's a fine lad, a canny lad, the miner.

Ye have your last drag o' the day at the gate,
Then it's into the cage you crowd wi' your mates,
Then you drop like a stone to the dark and the heat,
He's a fine lad, a canny lad, the miner.

At first the road's good and you get a move on,
But nearer the face the seam narrows down,
And you're scabbing your back on the roof ere long,
He's a fine lad, a canny lad, the miner.

Whether you're hewing or filling the tub,
Or putting the trams backs along to the road,
It's a hellish hard way to earn your grub,
He's a fine lad, a canny lad, the miner.

There's dust in your eyes and your nose and your hair,
And you're sweating and striving and straining for air,
You've got corns on your hands and your knees rubbed bare,
He's a fine lad, a canny lad, the miner.

Now it's time for your bate, so you eat it and then
There's time for a few minutes crack wi' the men,
Then you're back on the job and you're sweating again,
He's a fine lad, a canny lad, the miner.

When you think you've worked all the hours God sends,
And you fear that you're likely to go round the bend,
Then it's time to come up and breathe fresh air again,
He's a fine lad, a canny lad, the miner.

The Auchengiech Disaster
Words Norman Buchan, tune Skipping Barfit Through The Heather

In Auchengeich there stands a pit
The wheel above, it isna turnin
For on a grey Septmenber morn
The flames o Hell below were burnin

Though in below the coal lay rich
It’s richer noo, for aw that burnin
For forty seven brave men are dead
Tae wives and sweethearts ne’er returnin

The seams are thick in Auchengeich
The coal below is black and glistenin
But och, its cost is faur ower dear
For human lives there is nae reckonin

Oh better though we’d never wrocht
A thousand years o work an greivin
The coal is black like the mournin shroud
The women left behind arre weavin

The Fife Miner
By Sheila Douglas

Ma faither workit doun the pit
He wis gey prood o it
Tae dae ony ither wark wis niver his dream
Ilkie day o life that he gaed tae the seams

Chorus
There’s the wee pick, an the big pick
The knee-pads an the lamp-check
The helmet an the blue dust
Ingrained in his hauns
There’s the back shift, the early shift
Wi nae sign o sun or lift
Down in the roads whaur the Fife miner stuns

He wrocht hard, he wrocht lang
His days they were aye thrang
An when he cam hame, he wis tired fit tae drop
I mind how my mither toiled
Tae get plenty water boiled
For the tin bath an the wash tub
Tae clean him tae tae top

But these days are past an gane
Naethin is noo the same
The miner’s redundant, the pits aa awa
Afore my day is dune
I’ll be shair tae tell ma son
Aa the memories o the miner that I can recaa

An Old Verse
When I was engaged a coalbearer to be
When I was engaged a coalbearer to be
Through all the coal pits I maun wear the don brat [apron]
If my heart it should break I can never win free

The Collier Has A Dochter
Tune in Tone-Poetry of Burns
The collier has a dochter
And oh, she’s wonder bonnny
A laird he was that sought her
Rich baith in lands and money
She wadna hae a laird
Nor wad she be a lady
But she wad hae a collier
The colour o her daddie

O When She Cam Ben, She Bobbit Fu Law
Tune as title, part of lyric by Burns?

O when she come ben she bobbit fu law
O when she come ben she bobbit fu law
O when she come ben she kissed Cockpen
And syne she denied she did it at aa

And was na Cockpen right saucy withaa
And was na Cockpen right saucy withaa
In leavin the cdochter o a lord
And kissin a collier lassie an aa

O never look down, my lassie, at aaa
O never look down, my lassie, at aaa
Thy lips are as sweet and thy figure complete
As the finest dame in castle or haa

Tho thou hast nae silk and holland sae sma
Tho thou hast nae silk and holland sae sma
Thy coat and thy sark are thine ain handywark
And Lady Jean was never sae braw

GA’S SONG
Part of the story of Ewan McVicar's grandfather, Hugh Reynolds of Plean, in his own words.

When ah was a laddy o twelve year auld
In the year of Nineteen Ocht Two
Ma father hurt his back in a fall in the pit
And ma mither said "It's work time for you"

So ma mither changed the date on ma birth certificate
So's ah could leave the school, free and clear
And ah never knew she'd done it till ah went tae draw ma pension
And they made me work another year

Ah was put pickin stones from the coal comin up
And ma wage was ten bob a week
Less fourpence for the doctor, and sixpence for the union
And the money fair jingled in ma breeks

But ye'll no write a song about me, young man
Ye'll no write a song about me
Sing about the lassies pushin wagons full of stones
And ye'll no write a song about me

When the Nineteen and Fourteen War came along
Ah'd a wife and a six week old bairn
And the papers said the Gerries were killin kids and women
Ah said "Ah, but they'll leave mine alane!"

So me and some pals went away tae join up
The first Scottish miners tae enlist
And ah think tae this day of the fool that ah was
Tae believe all the lies o the press

But ye'll know write a song about me, young man
Ye'll no write a song about me
Sing about the laddies that marched off cheerin
And ye'll no write a song about me

They sent us over tae fight in France
And the sights that ah saw wad mak ye roar
Ah'd seen fields growin oats and barley
But ah'd never seen a field growin tartan before

Ah took a bit of shrapnel in the muscle o ma airm
And it lay there five months through
And when they dug it out there was a piece o ma jersey
And ma tunic lyin in there too

But ye'll no write a song about me, young man
Ye'll no write a song about me
Sing about the laddies that never saw their families
And ye'll no write a song about me

Then they sent us tae Salonika, and there ah caught malaria
Invalided hame, livin saft
Till the boat ah was on was torpedoed by the Gerries
And ah spent fourteen hours on a raft

It was swimmin time again when they put us back tae France
Night piquet duty at the Front
Sinkin in the mud till it's up tae yer middle
And only yer kilts held ye up

But ye'll know write a song about me, young man
Ye'll no write a song about me
Sing about the laddies that were swallowed by the mud
And ye'll no write a song about me

Then ah went back tae Thorniecroft's pit
Ah wrocht at the coalface there
Ah was Branch Secretary in 1926
When we had tae strike tae keep our share

We kept up our hearts and we kept up the fight
And we saw the General Strike come and go
No coal for our fires, and no food for our tables
But No Surrender to the foe

Then we heard that the firemen, the safety men, ye ken
That were keepin the machinery oiled
Were smugglin up coal for old Thorniecroft
So's that he could have his caviar boiled

Well, we couldny stand for that, and we planned to stop their game
But the management spies had the tale
And we were taken up before the Dean Of The Court
And I landed in Duke Street Jail

It was 'Heroes Of The Fight' when we came out
But the strike was over in vain
My name was high on the bosses' blacklist
And ah never was a miner again

But ye'll no write a song about me, young man
Ye'll no write a song about me
Sing about the shambles of the General Strike
And ye'll no write a song about me

Ah'll tell you who tae sing about, the martyr, John Maclean
The finest speaker ever ah heard
Five thousand people in St Andrew's Hall
And he held them with every word

Ah was on the County Council with his daughter
Ah, she's another fine fighter, is Nan
The two of us were votin against every rent increase
While the Labour lads sat upon their hands

But don't start me on about ma Party days
Or we'll be sittin here all night
It's your turn now to get on with the struggle
Ah've fought ma share of the fight

Ah'm nine tenths there tae my hundredth year
And ah sit and ah think of what ah've seen
Ah think ah'm goin tae make it, but the only trouble is
Ah'd have tae get a letter from the Queen

But ye'll no write a song about me, young man
Ye'll no write a song about me
There were thousands like me, nothing special about me
And ye'll no write a song about me

Other songs relevant to this page include
The Colliers’ Eight Hour Day
The Donibristle Disaster
The Starlaw Disaster
Down In A Coal Mine

The Garriongill
The Pitman’s Union
The Model Village Plean
The Truck Masters

The Fife Miner
Skylark
Hard Days But Happy Days
A Miner Boy
Deep Kinneil

Annie Cosgrove and Hughie Reynolds Paghe

‘BONNY COLLIER LADS & LASSIES’
A song, story and oral history project about Scottish coal-mining and miners, focussing on two lives, a miner’s wife and a miner.

GENESIS OF THE IDEA
Ewan McVicar has had a long-term interest in the history and songs of Scottish coal-mining, through the tales told him by his mother’s father, Hughie Reynolds of Plean, who was born in High Blantyre. Recently Ewan discussed with Ian Green of Greentrax Records a possible CD of Scottish mining songs and poetry, and has been gathering songs ranging from 18th Century broadside texts to songs newly made by Scots songwriters.
More detailed research into the subject then led Ewan to locate on the Internet a group of recordings made by US collector Alan Lomax in 1953 in Newtongrange, of songs and short details of her life by Mrs Annie Cosgrove, then aged 43. She also was born in Blantyre, she married a Scottish miner who worked in various pits, they met and married in the 1920s in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. In Whitburn, Newtongrange and Cape Breton she sang and learned more songs about mining.
Ewan has learned there are two mining museums in Nova Scotia, in Glace Bay and Inverness, and that many Scots miners went to work in Cape Breton mines. This feeds into another interest of Ewan’s. The Scots Gaelic connections between Cape Breton and Scotland are now well known and developed, but the non-Gael Scots connections are not. Ewan has learned something of these through visits to Nova Scotia and to Prince Edward Island, and through his work on the music elements of the Learning & Teaching Scotland website material on The Scots In Canada. He has also now made contact with academics at Cape Breton University who have developed practical work re Nova Scotia coalmining disaster songs.

Ewan has traced a song, Six Jolly Wee Miner Lads, that Annie learned from her father, and took to and left in Cape Breton, where it was 'collected' in 1940 by an American folklorist, then rewritten with Canadian references to become a theme song of the Cape Breton miners' choir The Men Of The Deeps.
The National Mining Museum Scotland in Newtongrange has a substantial collection of Scottish miners’ song lyrics and poetry. Some of the latter material, gathered from local newspapers, is little known and of particular interest.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT
The project investigated and researched the associated family narratives and social contexts of the lives of Mrs Annie Cosgrove and Hughie Reynolds, both here and in Nova Scotia, through work in the National Mining Museum Scotland through tracing members of Mrs Cosgrove’s family.
The resultant story material was woven together with songs and poetry to create a performance jointly by Ewan McVicar and traditional singer Siobhan Miller of Penicuik that was presented in Blantyre, Plean and Newtongrange.

A solo version of the show was taken by Ewan McVicar to several South Lanarkshire former mining communities.

This website was created, of song and poetry based source material and guidance notes for use by school teachers in former mining communities who are developing their students’ knowledge of their local heritage [this website supports the excellent and wide-ranging material already created online by the Scottish Mining Museum];
• a CD of song and poetry drawing on the material gathered and developed has been created and distributed.

MRS ANNIE COSGROVE
Born Annie Holland in Blantyre in 1909, she married Harry, a miner, he worked in mines in Lanarkshire, Whitburn and Glace Bay in Nova Scotia. Her father and brothers were miners. She married in Canada, returned to Scotland in about 1933 and had 2 children. By 1951 she was living in Newtongrange. In Blantyre she learned the very well known song ‘The Blantyre Explosion’from the singing of “a relative of the girl who was to have married Johnnie MacPhee [named in her version of the song]. A relative of her husband’s was also killed in the disaster.” Mrs Cosgrove learned other mining songs in Scotland and in Cape Breton. Her brother Bobbie Holland was also a singer. He went in 1927 to live in Glace Bay with his mother and siblings, his father James Holland was already there. Bobbie played guitar [he probably learned to do this in Cape Breton] and was recorded by Alan Lomax in 1953. That same year Bobbie and Annioe were taken down to London by Lomax to appear on a BBC TV programme that was directed by the young David Attenborough.

AUCHENRAITH PRIMARY SONGMAKING
Ewan McVicar visited P6/7, Miss Green’s class, Auchenraith Primary, Blantyre, on the 11th and 18th September, 2012.
Together they wrote a new song about Annie Cosgrove, who was born in Blantyre about 1900. It was her singing of a song about the 1877 Blantyre coalmine explosion when over 200 men died that made the song famous. The new song was sung at a concert in Blantyre on 27th September.
The tune of the song is a slow version of Bobby Shafto.

Annie Cosgrove, do you know
Was born in Blantyre long ago
Sang a sad song of the coal
Sad Annie Cosgrove

It was about an accident
Down the pit the miners went
Around the world the news was sent
Sad Annie Cosgrove

Way down deep under the ground
The miners heard an explosive sound
Bits of people flew around
Sad Annie Cosgrove

All the women of Blantyre
Cried ‘Is it a bomb, is it a fire?’
The word went all round Lanarkshire
Sad Annie Cosgrove

Two hundred men or more
Stepped that day through death’s door
Wives and daughter sad and sore
Sad Annie Cosgrove

The men that survived must have been strong
Then somebody wrote a song
That Annie learned and sang along
Sad Annie Cosgrove

She sailed to Canada across the sea
There she worked busily
And sang her song to everybody
Sad Annie Cosgrove

She came home to live in Nitten
In a book the song was written
It got famous all around Britain
Sad Annie Cosgrove

HUGHIE REYNOLDS
Born in High Blantyre in1889. His father was one of six brothers who came from Northern Ireland and were experts in initial shaft-sinking for new pits, so worked right across Scotland. After he had attended 11 primary schools Hughie’s family settled in Plean near Stirling. His father, then he, worked in Plean pits. Hughie was witness to the Plean mining disaster on 1921, and Branch Secretary of his Union during the 1926 Strike. He had vivid tales of the pit, World War One, 1921 and 1926, and later life in Plean. His oldest daughter, Ewan McVicar’s mother, was born in the Red Rows houses in Plean. Ewan himself was born in Inverness, Scotland, and was startled to learn that in Inverness, Nova Scotia, there were also Red Rows cottages built by the mining company there.

See our page on 'Scottish Coalmining Songs' for 'Ga's Song' which tells of Hughie's life in his own words.

NOTES
Relevant further search re the Nova Scotia connection could be undertaken.
An interesting side issue emphasising the electronic elements of the project is that Glace Bay is the site from where Marconi sent his very first Transatlantic wireless signals. This element could be made more of, so that electronic gathering and sharing of material would be more highlighted in the project.

Ewan McVicar, June 2011

Scottish Miners’ Poetry Page

Here are some lyrics by Fife miner poet and playwright Joe Corrie. He also wrote 'It's Fine Tae Keep In Wi The Gaffer'. These lyrics were set to music by Alan Reid of the Battlefield Band.

[1970:] Joe Corrie (1894-1968) [...] was a miner in the Fife and other coalpits, and his early poems became famous during the twenties largely through the old Glasgow socialist weekly, the 'Forward'. He is a genuine poet, and had considerable success also as working-class playwright. The fashion has passed for his work, and he lived in his declining years in straitened circumstances, and in ill-health. (Penguin Book of Scottish Verse 21)

MINERS' WIVES
(Words Joe Corrie / tune Alan Reid)
We have borne good sons to broken men
Nurtured them on our hungry breast
And given them to our masters when
Their day of life was at its best
We have dried their clammy clothes by the fire
Solaced them, tended them, cheered them well
Watched the wheels raising them from the mire
Watched the wheels lowering them to Hell
We have prayed for them in a Godless way
(We never could fathom the ways of God)
We have sung with them on their wedding day
Knowing the journey and the road
We have stood through the naked night to watch
The silent wheels that raised the dead
We have gone before to raise the latch
And lay the pillow beneath their head
We have done all this for our masters' sake
Did it in rags and did not mind
What more do they want? what more can they take?
Unless our eyes and leave us blind
(from The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse, 1970)

IMAGE OF GOD
(Words Joe Corrie / tune Alan Reid)
Crawlin' aboot like a snail in the mud
Covered wi' clammy blae
ME, made after the image o' God -
Jings! but it's laughable, tae
Howkin' awa' 'neath a mountain o' stane
Gaspin' for want o' air
The swweat makin' streams doon my bare back-banes
And my knees a' hauckit and sair
Strainin' and cursin' the hale shift through
Half-starved, half-blin', half-mad
And the gaffer he says, Less dirt in that coal
Or ye go up the pit, my lad
So I gie my life tae the Nimmo squad
For eicht and fower a day
Me! made after the image o' God -
Jings! but it's laughable, tae
(from The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse, 1970)
(I've no idea what the 'Nimmo squad' is, but I suspect it refers to a person important in the mining world, in the way people talk of the 'Beeching cuts' and 'Robens' merry men'.)

I AM THE COMMON MAN
(Words Joe Corrie / tune Alan Reid)
I am the Common Man
I am the brute and the slave
I am the fool, the despised
From the cradle to the grave
I am the hewer of coal
I am the tiller of soil
I am serf of the seas
Born to bear and to toil
I am the builder of halls
I am the dweller of slums
I am the filfth and the scourge
When winter's depression comes
I am the fighter of wars
I am the killer of men
Not for a day or an age
But again and again and again
I am the Common Man
But Masters of mine take heed
For you have put into my head
Oh! many a wicked deed
[1988:] The song began life as a poem by the late Joe Corrie. Alan Reid put it to music, together with Miners' Wives, adapting the words to make it fit. Joe Corrie was a Fife miner in the 1920s. After the General Strike (1926) he found himself without a job - like so many who had strong principles - so with some family and neighbours he formed a touring theatre company. He wrote, directed and acted in the plays. In later years he wrote plays for the theatre and radio as well as some songs and poems. He never returned to the mines but his direct, dignified and even prophetic poems confirm him as a true worker-poet. (Battlefield Band Songbook 123)

A poem by Joe Corrie
WOMEN ARE WAITING TONIGHT
Women are waiting tonight on the pit-bank,
Pale at the heart with dread,
Watching the dead-still wheels
That loom in the mirky sky,
The silent wheels of Fate,
Which is the system under which they slave.
They stand together in groups.
As sheep shelter in storm,
Silent, passive, dumb.
For in the caverns under their feet,
The coffin seams of coal
'Twixt the rock and the rock,
The gas has burst into flame,
And has scattered the hail of Death.
Cold the night is, and dark,
And the rain falls in a mist.
Their shawls and their rags are sodden,
And their thin, starved cheeks are blue,
But they will not go home to their fires,
Tho' the news has been broken to them
That a miracle is their only hope.
They will wait and watch till the dawn,
Till the wheels begin to revolve,
And the men whom they loved so well,
The strong, kind, loving men,
Are brought up in canvas sheets,
To be identified by a watch,
Or a button,
Or, perhaps, only a wish.
And three days from now,
They will all be buried together,
In one big hole in the earth.
And the King will send his sympathy,
And the Member of Parliament will be there,,
Who voted that the military be used
When last these miners came on strike
To win a living wage.
His shining black hat will glisten over a sorrowful face,
And his elegantly shod feet will go slowly behind the bier.
And the director of the company will be there,
Who has vowed many a time
That he would make the miner eat grass.
And the parson, who sits on the Parish Council,
Starving the children and saving the rates,
Will pray in a mournful voice,
And tear the very hearts of the bereaved.
He will emphasize in godly phrase,
The danger of the mine,
And the bravery and valour of the miner.
And the Press
That has spilled oceans of ink
Poisoning the public against the 'destroyers of industry',
Will tell the sad tale,
And the public will say,
'How sad.
' But a week today all will be forgotten,
And the Member of Parliament,
The coalowner,
The parson,
The Press,
And the public,
Will keep storing up their venom and their hatred,
For the next big miners' strike.
Women are waiting tonight at the pit-bank,
But even God does not see
The hypocrisy and the shame of it all.

For a feast of miners's poetry culled from local newspapers see Wilma Bolton’s’Pit Props And Ponies’ and ‘Black Faces And Tackety Boots’.

Also see A L Lloyd’s ‘Come All Ye Bold Miners’.

Miners’ Language Page

Scottish coalminers, like any other trade, have special words, terms and phrases to do with their work, like

bing / chows / dalk / doggar / ebb / faik / grool / hasson / inagaun ee / justiceman / kettle / lipe / muirment / nose o coal / onsetter / parrot coal / redd / rone / shangie / thummle / upthrow / whirlie youk

These and 200 more have been collected into 'The Scots Thesaurus'.