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Headlines . Communications . Home Shale Voices: Real and rounded history of the people By John Stevenson, SiU editor Shale Voices, says Tam Dalyell MP, "has added a basic source of material to the study of Scottish History that is invaluable." Scotland owes author Alistair Findlay "a debt of gratitude". No doubt. But the book's strength is not the cataloguing of events and politics surrounding the West Lothian shale mining industry (and of course Durhamtown Rangers FC), it is the real and rounded history of the people. It is their word of mouth accounts, the perceptive and sensitive poetry and the contemporary stories from the West Lothian Courier that transport you in time and context. It is also the humour (what else, with a Findlay family motto of 'haud the bus') and the authority and respect that shines through the writing. Alistair Findlay was brought up in West Lothian, played for Hibs and was in the Communist Party of Great Britain (kidgerie revisionist section, he says). He draws on a wide range of influences, none stronger than his father, Bob Findlay who was a shaleminer and editor of the West Lothian Courier. The paper's archives are part of the host of widely researched sources that bring a series of in-depth analyses, cameos and occasional eccentricities spanning the late 1800's to the 1960's. From 1850, 100 shale mines transformed West Lothian from a small rural population to a growing, industrial and multi-ethnic one. Paraffin and petrol were produced in the world's largest oil works in Addiewell. It is a human story. The Burngrange disaster, the 1926 West Calder rent strike led by Sarah Moore, the football hero Willie Thorton. The keen eyes of the shale voices and the contrasting perceptions tell the grass roots story of the simultaneous simplicity and complexity of West Lothian working class politics that perhaps still puzzles outsiders today. The evolution from Orange miners heckling Keir Hardie to inter-war generations voting for class rather than sectarian interests, is tinged with the insight that "bigots and bigotry did not so much retreat as they were left standing on ground no one but themselves wished to defend". Shale Voices can be personal, as in Brithers.... How they wid laugh tae see .. or about football as in Fitba' Cliche
On the terraces,
.. or in the letter to the editor from one D. Thompson that shows even in 1885, the facts of a game depend on who is watching it! It is about older people who (though not all) lament the loss of the mines, "but would anyone today really choose to return to the life of the shale workers?" But mostly it is a story of a hard but efficient industry killed off by cheap imports and no government support. A picture the author links to the loss of our coal mines. "Perhaps governments would do well to consider lessons of the past before deciding the future", says Alistair. Not surprisingly, perhaps he best sums up his purpose. "History belongs not only to those who made it, but to those who inherit it. The first priority is to set it down. The second is to make it available. Only then can we argue about it later". Shale Voices is not easy, but it is important. Informative, captivating and inspiring, speckled with hardship and humour, it is well worth a read. Look out for Alistair's work in progress, a song called
'Tories and other sad peoples'. |
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