Story Behind The Song

In September 1959, 47 men lost their lives in a coal mine near the town of Auchengeich when a faulty fan-belt caught fire due to an electrical fault. The men were in lifts travelling to the coal face to start work, and due to the intense smoke they were abandoned just a few hundred yards from safety. The mine was eventually flooded to put out the fire; there was only one survivor from the crews. The Mining accident was the worst within the UK in the 20th century, widowing 41 women and leaving 76 children without a father.

Song Description

Telling the story of the Auchengeich mining disaster, the song offers a moving lyric, then reflects on the loss of life and the general loss of the mining industry in Britain. Musically the song deliberately fits in to the disaster ballad genre. It is played on a single flat-picked acoustic guitar, with a gravelly vocal mirroring the subject matter. The chord structure and picking pattern is a reference to Woody Guthrie who wrote a number of disaster ballads.

Lyrics

The day began just like any other,
fathers, sons, husbands and brothers,
48 climbed in that cage,
To make the mile-long journey to dig out a wage.

Up ahead in the shaft a fan-belt broke,
Within a minute the shaft filled with smoke,
The men at the top had to move back,
Fighting for air as the whole sky turned black.

Fire raged above, men trapped below,
the flames and the smoke continued to grow,
The air in the pit was running out fast,
And the men at the top couldn't get past.

Families gathered waiting for news,
Wondering just how many men they would lose,
A man approached the waiting line,
He said their only choice was to flood the mine.

There were no dogs barking, no birds in the sky,
The only sound sound was a little girl's cry,
48 men went down that mine,
But only one man survived.

Now the mine has gone and the village has too,
But children remember the dads they once knew,
Tears and memories are the one souvenir,
For a way of life that's long disappeared.