Susannes
Folksong-Notizen
- [1958:] It is sometimes argued that the
Industrial Revolution killed folk-song, and of
course, there is something in that. [...] But it
is also true that wherever men work and live and
love and suffer, someone will string some words
together about it. So that even in the dirty,
smoky, clamorous industrial age songs have
appeared [...] This song was one of the first I
ever heard sung by Rena Swankie [...]. It can, of
course, still be heard among the miners in
Lanarkshire but also nowadays in Fife and the
Lothians. The explosion, one of the biggest
disasters in the history of the mines, occurred
at High Blantyre on October 22, 1877. (Norman
Buchan, Weekly Scotsman, Nov 20)
[1967:] In
character and in function, the texts were
changing fast. Ballads of this kind [...]
represent a middling stage. [This song] took a
course that resembled and yet was already
departing from the way of conventional broadside
pieces. As with the stall ballads of lost love
and brutal murder, the tragedy was presented in
personal terms - [...] a young woman of vague
features stands by a river lamenting for her
lover killed in the mine. But the listener
understands this is no personal tragedy, the
young woman is the symbol of all the mourning
women in the stricken community. For all that, no
comment is offered beyond a general curse on the
cruel mine; an air of fatalism hangs over this
kind of song, the hero is a fine boy but a mere
toy of destiny, like the heroes of the folk
ballads of earlier times. [...]
The Blantyre explosion typefies a slightly later
growth [than Johnny Seddon]. The whole panorama
is clearer, we know the name of the colliery, the
number of miners who died alongside the hero is
specified, the community is presented, even if
only obliquely, in the mouth of the solitary
riverside mourner [...]. (Lloyd, England 335f)
[1974:] 'APPALLING COLLIERY ACCIDENT IN
SCOTLAND: A fearful Accident took place at
Dixon's Pits, High Blantyre, eight miles above
Glasgow, on Monday, October 22nd, [1877,] when it
is supposed that ABOVE TWO HUNDRED COLLIERS LOST
THEIR LIVES' - so reads the prose text above a
broadside version of this song, which is known,
not only in Scotland, but also in the United
States, where there is also a mining district
known as Blantyre, and in Northern Ireland. The
lovely last verse here is adapted from the
version sung to Robin Morton by John Maguire of
Tonaydrumallard, Co. Fermanagh, which John said
he had learned in a Blantyre pub in the 1920s
from an old Highlander who had worked a shift
before the explosion. (Dallas, Toil 205)
[1975:] In its report on the explosion The
Glasgow Herald noted that "from every
household in the locality one or more of the
members were among the list of the
entombed". The effect on a small community
like High Blantyre must have been devastating.
(Notes Boys of the Lough, 'Lochaber No More')
[1983:] Ewan MacColl berichtet, daß sich die
Katastrophe, von der hier die Rede ist, im Jahre
1877 in einer der Kohlengruben in High Blantyre
bei Glasgow ereignete. Über 200 Bergarbeiter
fanden dabei den Tod. Mrs. Cosgrove aus Newton
Grange, Midlothian, hat diese Version gesungen;
sie wurde von dem Folkforscher Alan Lomax
aufgenommen. (Walton 42)
[1990:] William Dixon, [then the biggest iron-
and coal-master in the Glasgow region,] also
owned the pit at Blantyre, outside Glasgow. [...]
Of 233 men and boys working in the pit on that
day, 207 were killed. [...] Note the name of the
miner; in fact, the majority of the slain men
were Irish. Dixon's pit was notorious for poor
ventilation and bad management. The local miners'
leader, Alexander McDonald, was hard put to it to
restrain the pitmen from taking summary vengeance
on Dixon and his managers. And Dixon, ironically,
was regarded as a model employer in many
respects. (Damer, Glasgow 27ff)
[1996:] 'The Blantyre Explosion' disaster
occurred at Messrs. Dixon's Colliery, High
Blantyre, near Glasgow on October 22nd, 1877,
with the resulting death of over 200 miners. We
considered Ewan [MacColl]'s version of this song
to be quite outstanding and a must for the album.
(Notes 'If It Wisnae for the Union - STUC
Centenary Album')
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