Auchengeich Memorial.

The best of the weather was this morning so I headed out to do a bit of sculpture photography.

This one is a bit special for me as its quite close to home, and I blipped it just after the new memorial appeared in 2009, commemorating 50 years since the disaster.  However about a month  after that - and almost unbelievably - it was stolen!   I then attended (and blipped) the unveiling of the replacement in June 2010.  This one contains a chip which will track it if anyone removes it again.

The mine suffered from 2 bad accidents in 1931 and 1959, with 6 lives lost in the first one and 47 in the second.  

The 1959 accident was caused by fire which broke out just after the men went down to start their shift and they were trapped.  1200 local people gathered outside and were told by the Coal Board that they had made the difficult decision to flood the pit.   Only one miner survived.