Jack did the Monday book, so he gets to be late for the Wednesday guest post –
How I failed to write a song.
The corner of West Fife where I was born and lived most of my life has a long history of coal mining. One of the villages on the coast of the river Forth is Culross (pronounced Kooross) and nearby was the Valleyfield colliery. It closed in the 1970s and I knew something of the history so it seemed like a subject for a song.
Back in the late 1500s a local landowner discovered there was coal under his land that extended out under the river, so he had an artificial island built there and tunnel to reach it. King James the sixth (who later became James the first of England as well – the bible guy) heard of it and asked to visit it. When he emerged on the island he thought he’d been hoodwinked and was about to be killed!
Eventually The Fife Coal Company sank a deep mine on the shore nearby which tapped into that same seam. That was Valleyfield colliery.
However even before coal was discovered there had been salt pans in the area where the salt water from the estuary was boiled to produce a valuable and much sought after commodity.
Then in 1939 there was an underground explosion that killed over thirty miners and injured many more. Following the end of WW2 and the election of the Labour Government the coal mines were nationalized and better safety measures were introduced.
In the late 1970s the coal was running out, but not before the underground workings linked up with others from mines on the other side of the Forth, creating the only under-river crossing to this day. But time had run out for the mine.
Culross is owned by The National Trust for Scotland and kept as it was from the 1600s, so everyone who has ever watched a historical film set in Scotland has seen it – most notably ‘Outlander’.
Back to the song. All I ever managed was a tune and a chorus, but I hope I can eventually make verses as well.
“Farewell tae ye Valleyfield, we’ll a’ mind yir cage o’ steel.
The roads and the paths, oh we’ll mind every name.
But time plays a waitin’ game, she’ll soon haud her sway the same,
The saut pans will soon ha’e their freedom again”
