marches and lock-outs and the greed of the coal owners. But the
industry was nationalised now and new bonds were being made between
miner and manager, although stupid strikes still occurred, like
the time they walked out when prices were increased in the canteen
without consultation. He was to be one of the new breed of managers
from within the industry, if he managed to pass his exams. The men
knew this but it made no difference to how he was treated. They
freely passed on their skills to him withholding nothing, although
he remembered one old worthy who had said with a twinkle in his
eye "mind noo when ye become a manager, you'll have to be a right
....." They encouraged him with the working man's respect for education,
"You're no wanting to be a miner all your life, are you?".
He moved from Esk Valley to Heriot Watt for the Higher Level courses
to qualify him as a mine manager. His apprenticeship was over and
he returned only briefly to the "Links" after that to gain some
brief experience as a shotfirer and deputy before being transferred
to one of the new mechanised mines in the area. The "Links" was
on its last legs, the workings too far away from the shafts to mine
profitably. The land was needed for the coal-fired power station
being planned to turn the coal from the new super pits into electricity
for homes and factories.
He was glad now that he had left the country before his pit was
razed to the ground with the mass closures of the 1960's. He had
sought his fortune and found it in the mining fields of the Canadian
West where the solid training of his youth had stood him in good
stead in his rise to be one of the managers of the Consolidated
Mining Company of. Canada.
The sound of a hooter from the power station snapped him out of
his reverie. He panned once more around the landscaped slopes, the
main shaft must have been over there, with the second one on this
side of the road, the timber yard there and the pit baths through
that break in the wall. He looked in vain for a plaque or a sign
to mark where the pit had stood but there was none. He thought of
all the men who had laboured below this spot, their lifetimes work
gone without trace. Where were they now, dead, retired to live out
a pensionless existence reliving past glories, some no doubt transferred
to the deep mines of the Midlothian Basin. "Prestonlinks Colliery",
surely lived in their memories as it did in his.
He drove back to the airport in time for the evening shuttle in
sombre mood, full of the past but mindful of the future. He thought
of the prospects now for a young Prestonpans lad full of hope as
he had been 30 years ago. What could he learn now? Where could he
expend his energies? Prestonlinks closed, Prestongrange a museum
to the past, the saltworks now only a distribution centre, soapmaking
finished, the "wee heavy"
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