Cumnock Chronicle | Features | DISASTER ON APRIL 13, 1938

Sunday, 20th July, 2008

Published: Thursday, 19th April, 2007 09:16

DISASTER ON APRIL 13, 1938

By Cumnock Chronicle Newsroom

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First appeared in the Cumnock Chronicle Friday November 23 2001

FIVE men were killed and 20 were injured as they headed home from their shift at New Cumnock’s Bank No 6 mine on April 13, 1938.

The horrific accident unfolded as a wire rope holding the hutches, which hauled the men to and from the pit bottom, snapped and brought the cages carrying 28 men crashing to ground.

Robert Murray, 32, of Burnside, John Mackie, 19, of Craigbank, and Joseph Walls, 14, of Connelpark (who had started work just a few days earlier), died as the rope gave way and the hutch taking to the surface plummeted into the dark pit bottom dragging eight others down with it.

An injured Robert Milligan, 32, of Connelpark, was taken to the surface but died as he received medical assistance.

And James Grozier, 31 of Craigbank, died later in hospital.

The other twenty men were taken to hospital in Ayr and Kilmarnock for treatment.

THE first rescue work came from the men on the bottom waiting for their turn to climb to the surface.

On hearing the crash and the helpless shouts, they hurried up the roadway to the tangled mass of wrecked hutches with their work mates pinned beneath them.

Help was on its way, but the men worked on to pull the injured men out and carry them the whole distance of the mine on makeshift stretchers.

It took 45 minutes to bring the first of them to the pithead.

All the doctors and nurses in the district were summoned to the pit to treat the men as they were brought to safety.

TWO men had made remarkable escapes.

Robert Ferrans of Pathhead quickly clutched the overhead girder as the hutch came down.

At the time he said: “I caught hold of the girder by a lucky chance, as I realised something was wrong. I was on the second last hutch and I suddenly became aware that the rake had stopped. In a fraction of a second I put my hands up and caught the girder. I raised my whole body up to the roof so that I would be clear of the hutches as they passed below, and at the same time avoid being carried away. I really had a marvellous escape.”

One of the other men who leaped to safety, James Brown of Burnfoot Rows, hung on the overhead bell wire.

In his account after the accident he said: “I realised that the steel rope must have broken, and just then the hutches stopped altogether and began to move backwards. I did the first thing I could think of, and that was to leap into the darkness and try to catch hold of the girders on the roof. I missed the girder, but when I was falling my hands came in contact with the bell wires. I hung on grimly as long as I could, but suddenly my grip slipped away and I fell.

“The hutches had passed under my feet by this time, and I landed on my back on the roadway, where I rolled over several times.

“I could hear the hutches clattering down the steep incline, and then followed by a loud crash. I realised the hutches must have piled up, and I scrambled to my feet and made for the surface to raise the alarm.”

Mr Brown met Mr Ferrans in the darkness and they both walked together into safety.

JAMES Collings, of Craigbank was in the same hutch as 14-year-old Joseph Walls who was killed outright.

It was Joseph’s first job and he had only started a few days earlier.

HE WAS ONE OF A FAMILY OF EIGHT AND WAS WORKING TO KEEP A HOUSE AFTER HIS FATHER WAS CRIPPLED IN AN EARLIER PIT ACCIDENT.

As word of the accident spread through New Cumnock, people rushed to the pit for news.

And Robert Milligan’s father arrived just as his son was pulled out. But his relief soon turned to despair as the man watched the last traces of life drain from his son.

John Whiteford came to realise how lucky he was as he was stopped from entering the last hutch because there was no more room.

He said at the time: “I was sitting with the others waiting for it to come back when I heard the rumbling of the hutches tearing down.

“We scrambled out of the way and the hutches went rushing past us and crashed. I knew my brother was there and I hurried down to the spot. I found him lying injured and I helped carry him on a stretcher to the surface.”

BY now silence had fallen on New Cumnock as the village retreated to mourn its dead.

Miners from Muirkirk, Cumnock, Dalmellington, Skares, Kirkconnel, Auchinleck, Cronberry and Sanquhar marched alongside the New Cumnock men through the streets while over 100 cars carried grief stricken relatives.

More than 2000 men marched in the cortege. Every blind in the village was pulled down, every shop shut its doors and every face was painted with sorrow. Traffic ground to a halt for three hours as the procession paid tribute to the men they had lost.

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