In 1969 Charcon’s Building Materials factory in Chryston on the outskirts of Glasgow opened its doors. 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the factory opening, but rather more significantly 2009 is also the 50th anniversary of Scotland’s worse ever mining disaster. The link in those events is that our factory at Chryston is built on the site of that infamous disaster.
At 7.00am on the morning of September 18 1959, twelve bogies, as they were called, with four men in each, had commenced their underground decent to start another shift at Auchengeich Colliery. Unknown to the men on board, a large belt which drove one of the fans had been slipping and caught fire. The fire spread to the wooden supports which sat between the girders holding up the roof.
The bogies with the men aboard were lowered into the dense smoke from the fire. Some, overcome by the suffocating smoke fell from the bogies, others tried to jump and get below the smoke.
It was impossible to get into the pit to put out the fire and the difficult decision had to be taken to flood the mine, pumping water from the adjacent Bothlin Burn.
When all of the bodies were eventually recovered there was only one survivor. 47 men had lost their lives, devastating the community around Auchengeich Colliery. Most of the men had lived in the adjacent mining village of Bridgend.
All that is left of the original pit and village today are the office building which we still use and the nearby Auchengeich Miners Social Club, which is in the old village Welfare Hall.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Auchengeich Colliery Disaster a memorial garden was built adjacent to the site.
The centre piece of the garden is a bronze statue which was unveiled by Rt Hon. Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland, he was joined by former First Minister, Henry McLeish, Local MP's, MSP's, clergy, the Salvation Army and schools from the area.
Included in the garden is a circle of 47 stones engraved with the names of those who lost their lives in 1959 as well as 6 stones set in a smaller circle of those who lost their lives in an earlier disaster. Almost all materials used to construct the garden, including the name stones, were supplied and donated by Charcon and Sub bases were supplied by Aggregate Industries Scotland.